Early Review – The Fixer (The Fixer, Book 1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Release Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1619635944
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Fixer series
Source: eGalley through NetGalley.com
Rating: 3/5 stars
I got a copy of this book to review through NetGalley. Previous to reading The Fixer I had read both the first book in Barens’ Raised by Wolves series (didn’t like it) and her The Naturals series (loved it). I didn’t enjoy this book as much as Barnes’ The Naturals series. This was still an engaging YA political thriller.
Tess ends up traveling to DC to live with her sister who and finds out she is a “fixer” for politicians and big wigs in DC. What follows is both a mystery and a thriller involving Tess trying to solve the mystery behind the death of a Supreme Court Justice; meanwhile Tess’s sister is also working on the case. When people start dying Tess begins to realize how very serious the situation is.
This story follows an interesting premise, but I am not a huge fan of reading about politics and conspiracy theory. Aside from all the “fixing” and politics in here there is a nice side plot about the strained relationship between Tess and her sister.
Tess is okay as a character; although she makes a lot of bad decisions throughout this book. Her and her sister cause a lot of issues because they don’t talk to and trust each other; which was frustrating for me as a reader.
The story is fairly engaging and it’s paced pretty well. I just had some trouble really getting into the subject matter. When I finished the book I was mostly like “eh, that was okay”.
Overall this was an okay YA political thriller. Political thrillers really aren’t my thing, so I wasn’t all that enamoured with the subject matter. I ended up thinking everything about the story was okay but not great. I guess I would recommend if you are a fan of political thrillers, personally this book was not really my cup of tea.
This book goes toward the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge