Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Coin Heist by Elisa Ludwig - YA Review



Coin Heist by Elisa Ludwig -
* E-Arc provided by NetGalley *

The last place you’d expect to find a team of criminals is at a prestigious Philadelphia prep school. But on a class trip to the U.S. Mint – which prints a million new coins every 30 minutes – an overlooked security flaw becomes far too tempting for a small group of students to ignore.

United by dire circumstances, these unlikely allies – the slacker, the nerd, the athlete, and the "perfect" student – band together to attempt the impossible: rob the U.S. Mint. The diverse crew is forced to confront their true beliefs about each other and themselves as they do the wrong thing for the right reasons.



Elisa Ludwig's Coin Heist is a fun, suspenseful, and compelling thriller, told from the revolving perspectives of four teens, each with their own motive for committing a crime that could change all of their lives for the better—if they can pull it off. (Goodreads)


My Thoughts:

To begin I must confess: I love heist themes. Heist movies? Love them! Bring on the Ocean's, Italian Job, Inside Man type movies and keep 'em coming! Heist books? Love, love, love! (My absolute favorite being the YA Heist society series by Ally Carter). In my opinion, we need more YA/Teen Heist books because there are just not enough out there - so needless to say, I was a teeny-tiny bit excited for this and one I got the chance to read the E-Arc a happy dance may or may not have occurred!
               So, as you can probably gather from the picture and blurb, Coin Heist is about an unlikely group of teens who join forces to plan a heist on the US Mint in order to save their school. To me it was really Heist Society (or for movie reference Ocean's) meets Breakfast Club.
               So fans of awesome 80's films unlikely groups/teams working together - type stories, heist themes, and/or fun, adventure YA books - this book is probably looking for you!

Highlights:
* The heist! - I loved reading about the teens getting together, plotting, planning, strategizing and coordinating a heist.
*The  Plot - Can't say much more for fear of spoilers but: it was fun, it was amusing, and it was engaging!
*The characters - I really enjoyed getting to know each character, I liked learning about their personalities and motivations. I also liked that the book did this by changing POVs. This, of course, is always interesting for looking at and learning about other characters as well - I like getting an interpretation of the main characters not just from their own perspective but from others as well.

Wishes:
* Character POVs - Although I really did enjoy the fact that the story was told from multiple perspectives, one wish would have been for slightly more differentiation between the different character voices. At times I would lose track of who was narrating, although I could pick it up again easy enough as I went along and saw the conversations, etc.
* The ending didn't complete do it for me - I was a bit let down by the ending, I wished it happened a bit differently. I guess it was a more realistic (in some ways) idea of how it all plays out but I was hoping for a different resolution. I don't want to spoil the book so I can't really be specific here, but suffice it to say that I was left wanting for a bit more closure.

Overall, it was a fun, quick, and light read - perfect for what I'm generally looking for in my summer reads. I enjoyed the heist aspect and the overall idea of the story, I also found the characters to be interesting.

Rating
3.5 out of 5 Doxies - Light, fun and definitely worth a read!

Recommendations
Heist Society by Ally Carter
Also Known As by Robin Benway


Jenn @ Tale of Two Doxies

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