Review: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 4, 2014
Oh, this book. It brought out so many emotions in me while I was reading. I even stopped by the facebook page to discuss it a bit. Number Thirteen is a crazy read but not so much what I would consider a dark read. It’s more of a dusk read, dark but not as dark as I expected or like. Apparently my depravity knows no bounds.If you’re looking to get into dark reads but are scared and don’t know where to start this would be a good one. It gives you a mild introductory look into what you’ll find, but doesn’t actually take you there. It’s a great way to work yourself into the dark read lifestyle. I’d highly suggest this route and this book as your first voyage to the dark side. Don’t be like me and just jump off the deep end then spend days trying to get over your shock.William was a different story, as soon as I realized we were going to get his point of view I knew it was going to be a fun and different read. Although, getting Williams side of things kind of took away the suspense and fear you normally find in these types of stories. It made it much easier to fall for him. Then just when I thought I was falling, and falling hard for William, he does something horrible. It was so bad I wanted to cry, that’s how I knew I definitely liked the bad guy. I mean what is wrong with me that I was so hurt by the bad guys actions? These types of stories to it to you, I swear. It’s Stockholm syndrome. Even after we find out the full story it was almost harder on me because then you knew it was true where before you had hope that it wasn’t.William does some things that even after they are explained I just couldn’t wrap my head around where he was coming from. Why he thought these things were a good idea, and they were never explained fully why they had been. Plus there is a messed up side to him with his ultimate reasons that was just really… sick/weird/twisted. I don’t have the right word to explain it. Ultimately he wasn’t able to make me fall back in love with him after a few of the things he did.I really liked thirteen and being in her head. I found her to be a really strong character. I was kept finding myself questioning if she would have been as strong had she had her memories or was it the lack of memories that allowed her to find that strength? Another thing that we really don’t find out the answers to. I like to believe that after everything she was just a strong person and because of that she was able to handle her surroundings.I had a really hard time with rating Number Thirteen. I continuously went back and forth between a 3,  3.5 or 4. I even had a discussion with Trish that maybe I’m just a ridiculously hard rater (we agreed this is part of the problem). The story was a four for so long, but then in the end I couldn’t give it that rating, even if I wanted to. I really enjoyed the book, I’ll definitely be reading Bella Jewel’s other books,  The MC Sinners series, that’s for sure. While I enjoyed the book I didn’t love it. Certain parts of the book and characteristics of main characters just didn’t seem believable. I wish the actions of certain people had been backed up a bit more with history. In fact the book could have been much longer and I probably would have loved it. There is so much we never learn I wanted to understand more. The ending seemed very rushed, tied up too nice and quickly to pass as believable. I also would have liked to see a bigger/deeper epilogue with more details on how things really ended up.For the longest time I just couldn’t wrap my head around the story.  Things were happening so fast. I felt like there needed to be more time passed before I could believe in the changes that were suggested. There were a few plot holes that I found really frustrating because we never learn what the heck happened. What was the whole deal with number 6? Does no one care? That explanation would have helped… maybe. What the heck about Ben, what was the point of his character if we never really learn anything else about him? He stuck by? Why? See, so many things that left me with a case of scrunchy face.I loved the way the author seamlessly worked in translations when required. It’s the best I’ve seen it done in quite a while. But it left me wondering why we really needed the foreign language in the first place, to make things more exotic?? The suspense was also good, even with given William’s point of view. I will say I did not see where this story was going to go and I didn’t expect it to go ‘that’ way when I first started reading. The whole thing kept me on the edge of my seat for a good while.