Review of 100 Hours by Rachel Vincent

Title/Author: 100 Hours (100 Hours #1) by Rachel Vincent
Publisher/Date published: Katherine Tegen Books, March 28th 2017
How I got this book: received it from the publisher as an egalley, thanks!

Goodreads summary: A decadent spring break getaway on an exotic beach becomes a terrifying survival story when six Miami teens are kidnapped and ransomed.

Maddie is beyond done with her cousin Genesis’s entitled and shallow entourage. Genesis is so over Miami’s predictable social scene with its velvet ropes, petty power plays, and backstabbing boyfriends.

While Maddie craves family time for spring break, Genesis seeks novelty — like a last-minute getaway to an untouched beach in Colombia. And when Genesis wants something, it happens.

But paradise has its price. Dragged from their tents under the cover of dark, Genesis, Maddie, and their friends are kidnapped and held for ransom deep inside the jungle — with no diva left behind. It all feels so random to everyone except Genesis. She knows they were targeted for a reason. And that reason is her.

Now, as the hours count down, only one thing’s for certain: If the Miami hostages can’t set aside their personal problems, no one will make it out alive.

I used to devour thrillers when I was younger, but these days I gravitate more to other genres, but I've really enjoyed Rachel Vincent's writing style in the past and that combined with the summary made me pick up 100 Hours. Sadly, it didn't work so well for me.

I felt that it lacked something to make me care about what was going to happen to this group of teenagers before it started happening. We're thrown right into the story a little bit before the main events start to unroll and the rapid change in POV between Maddie and Genesis didn't make me connect to either of the characters. Especially because I didn't really like either of them. I mean, I sort of felt bad for Maddie, her father died and her brother's a recovering addict, but it was all so briefly mentioned that I felt like I was supposed to feel sorry for her, but it didn't fully register.
And then there's Genesis, who's supposed to be entitled and not a very nice person, but there's no depth to this character portrayal and she just randomly hooks up with guys who are not her boyfriend, which I can't really blame her for because her boyfriend is a douche, but he's RIGHT THERE, so that was a bit of a problem for me.

There was just a bit too much of random romance thrown in, I mean, why the heck are these people making out with each other when they're being held hostage? I mean, seriously? Why is everyone falling in love with each other in a matter of hours and willing to make sacrifices for said other person when they've known each other for all of 5 minutes and don't even know their real names??? I mean, SERIOUSLY?? Also priorities anyone? And I was just not shipping it. Because it was weird. And while I'm all for romance, it took away from the storyline in this case.

The ending left me going, WAIT WHAT? Because major dramatic events and CLIFFHANGER, but I still don't think I'll pick up the sequel, because while I think we'll finally get to some more interesting storylines, I'm not sure I want to read another full novel with these characters.

My rating: 1,5 stars

What I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

Hi all!

It's been a while since we talked. And that's basically because for a bit I couldn't talk about what I really wanted to talk about and then I had zero motivation to blog and SO MUCH going on. The main reason that I haven't been around much is this:

I've been growing a tiny human :)  and that's taken up a lot of my energy and strangely also time, not the growing itself, but the planning and being tired and feeling UGH for the first three months. And reading about pregnancy and tiny humans and everything they need. Last Friday was my due date and now I'm impatiently waiting for the arrival of our little girl, so it might be some time before you hear from me again after this.

Other highlights over the last couple of months:

We went to the Maldives! Which was amazing and SO gorgeous and the boyfriend actually proposed there, which was totally romantic. We relaxed and drank all the mango juice and snorkeled with sea turtles and actually saw dolphins and Nemo and Dory and it was just a lovely time!

We got married! We wanted to get married before the baby's here, so we decided to have the ceremony with just family and my best friend and her boyfriend and we had a wonderful day! We're throwing a party to celebrate somewhere in the summer probably.

We bought a house :) (I know, it's crazy right?) We'd been talking about moving and buying a house instead of continuing to rent and the baby just moved it a little bit forward on the timeline. And we were really lucky to find the perfect house that we both fell in love with and we've already been living here for 2 months now. I wasn't able to contribute as much as I would have liked with the moving process, but we're mostly unpacked now and I have an amazing set of built in shelves in the attic (thanks to the previous owners and my lovely father-in-law who built me some more when I told him it wouldn't fit all my books) and I just love it. We had so much help from our friends and family and I feel really blessed to have them in our lives!

I finished my GP residency. The day my maternity leave started was also the last day of my residency, though officially I'll be done on July 1st, but it's all maternity leave and vacation up until then, to basically it's done. I was REALLY sad to leave the GP's office I was working at, because it's such an amazing place to work at and my colleagues are the best ever, but I do feel really proud that I'm done and I'll visit with the baby and hope that I'll get to work there every now and then.

I've also been reading, but not as much as I thought I would, especially since my maternity leave started. But I did buy a book seat so in theory I'll be able to read handsfree which'll come in handy when the baby gets here ;) Fingers crossed it won't take long now for her to get here!

I feel so out of touch with the blogopshere! Let me know what you've been up to!