Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer

e-Audio, 14:14:22
Narrated by: Rebecca Soler
Release Date: November 3, 2020
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: November 1-11, 2020
Stand-alone
Source: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the Publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)
TW: 
For fans of: Magical Realism, Contemporary, Romance, YA

    In this young adult contemporary romance, a girl is suddenly gifted with the ability to cast instant karma on those around her—both good and bad.
     Chronic overachiever Prudence Daniels is always quick to cast judgment on the lazy, rude, and arrogant residents of her coastal town. Her dreams of karmic justice are fulfilled when, after a night out with her friends, she wakes up with the sudden ability to cast instant karma on those around her. Pru giddily makes use of the power, punishing everyone from public vandals to karaoke hecklers, but there is one person on whom her powers consistently backfire: Quint Erickson, her slacker of a lab partner and all-around mortal enemy. Soon, Pru begins to uncover truths about Quint, her peers, and even herself that reveal how thin the line is between virtue and vanity, generosity and greed . . . love and hate. 

*MY THOUGHTS*

Before I even started this I just KNEW I would love it. If you know me, you know I’m a huge Marissa Meyer fan, and contemp romance is my favorite genre, and since this combined the two, I was expecting to give this 10 stars. Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite make it…

First things first, I LOVED the narrator. Rebecca Soler is one of my favorites. I fell for her when I first heard her narrate the Lunar Chronicles series. I loved how she was able to make the characters have a unique sound. I’m assuming that’s got to be hard when you’re only one person. Voice actors are cool, yo.

I also really liked the plot. I don’t know what I would do with all that power. Having the power to give exact Instant Karma on someone (whether they deserve it or not) seems like a huge responsibility. Like in the book, I would hope that the Universe would intervene in case I got it epically wrong or something. No matter how old I am, I don’t think I’m old enough to make those types of decisions.

To piggyback off that, I also liked the conflict that came out of the plot. The book was a bit long, but I thought for the most part, it was interesting because what they were doing was so cool. (I wish I could see the sea turtle thing up close. That would have been awesome.) But when they finally got to the conflict at the end, I thought it was a good way to make them “break up” and get back together. Although I wasn’t a fan of how mean one of them was to the other. Even if they DO seem like that sometimes.

However, I was not a fan of the main character. She was so judgmental and I couldn’t stand it. I guess that came with the territory of doling out karma, but still. She was like that BEFORE the powers were bestowed upon her. I did like that she admitted that she was in the story, but it was so far in the story, that by then I had already made up my mind about her. As for Quint I liked him at first, but he ended up being just as judgmental and I didn’t really care for him either. I wish the characters were different.

This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting…. I wanted so much more… But it wasn’t terrible. It was ok. But with Meyer I was expecting it to be more than ok. Hopefully this isn’t her last foray into contemp magical realism with romance. With a bit more “practice” I’m sure she can get this to 5 stars as well.

Overall, I give this