Time Bomb by Joelle Charbonneau

Hello everyone!

Today’s post is going to be one that I should have wrote last week – but I got lazy and pushed it until the day before I wanted it up.

This post is going to be a book review for Time Bomb by Joelle Charbonneau!

I’d like to thank Raincoast Books for sending me this ARC for an honest review!

I hope you all enjoy!

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Release Date: March 13th, 2018
Pages: 352 Pages
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers

Plot:
A congressman’s daughter who has to be perfect. A star quarterback with a secret. A guy who’s tired of being ignored. A clarinet player who’s done trying to fit in. An orphaned rebel who wants to teach someone a lesson. A guy who wants people to see him, not his religion.

They couldn’t be more different, but before the morning’s over, they’ll all be trapped in a school that’s been rocked by a bombing. When they hear that someone inside is the bomber, they’ll also be looking to one another for answers.

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⭐ ⭐ ⭐

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Starting off, I want to mention that picking up this novel, I was afraid that it would be an exact replication of One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus! As much as I loved reading that book, I wasn’t looking to read another book exactly like that one.

Thankfully, this novel wasn’t a replica of that novel. Of course it had a similar plot, in terms of having characters that are all very different and there being a mystery, but other than that this novel was very unique to anything I’ve read before.

This novel covers a very important topic, especially following the shootings in Parkland, Florida. It was such an eye opening experience reading this novel from a perspective of being inside a school when bombs go off, and fear that’s associated with that.

The characters in this novel were so incredibly unique and well written. I loved the diversity that was featured in this novel, whether it be by race, sexuality, sex, etc. This novel had so many diverse characters and they were all amazingly written. Throughout this novel you follow POVs from all of the main characters and I thought that was a great way for the reader to get to know these characters.

Personally, I was a huge fan of Rashid. He was a muslim character and I thought his representation was done amazingly. Being Sikh myself, it’s sometimes frustrating to see Sikh and Muslim characters written so stereotypically, but Joelle did such a great job writing Rashid and I loved the way that she made this character such a vital part of this novel in many different ways.

Living in America and even Canada as a Muslim or Sikh is a hard life and there are so many stereotypes we face constantly, especially the usual “all Muslims are terrorists” stigma which is utterly despicable.

Aside from the characters being incredible, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the setting. The setting in this novel was the school for about 97% of the story and I thought it was a very visually pleasing novel. I could picture all the classrooms mentioned in this novel and I could feel the tension in the air that Joelle did such a good job presenting through her writing.

Lastly, the mystery aspect of this novel was one that I thought fell short a bit. I was hoping for an incredible twist at the end, but I didn’t get that at all. I pretty much pegged the bomber from the first couple chapters. It was a very obvious character to me, and I’m sure a lot of others will feel the same.

That seems to be the only problem I really had with this novel. Aside from that I loved the tension, atmosphere, characters, and general plot. It was such a quick read and once I had picked it up, it was very hard to put it down!

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That concludes my review for Time Bomb by Joelle Charbonneau! I hope you all enjoyed!

Thank you so much for reading and don’t forget to follow my blog as well as my other social media sites linked in the side bar!

Until next time,

Rimpy Toor