I think I could have loved this book if Pru wasn’t so whiny. All she did was complain. The. Entire. Time.
I really loved Quint. And the idea of instant karma. Just couldn’t handle Pru. :/

I received a digital arc and an audiobook copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What if you suddenly had the ability to cast instant karma on the people around you, rewarding those who do good and punishing those who do wrong? Prudence, a judgemental, over-achieving, perfectionist, never thought this could even be possible until it happened to her. The only person she just can't seem to get her powers to dole out punishment to is her annoying lab partner, Quint, who is consistently late, a bad speller, and everything else that Prudence can't stand. When Prudence doesn't get the grade she hoped for on their big lab assignment, she is willing to do whatever it takes to raise her grade, causing a series of events that unveils who Quint truly is, who Prudence has the ability to become, and the difference between right and wrong.

I really didn't enjoy the reading experience of this book. Like at all. I was so miserable for the first 60% because Prudence is so incredibly unlikeable AND the story just feels like it drags on forever. Prudence definitely has some character development over the course of the book, but it was really hard to look past how pretentious and judgmental she was for most of the plot. And I also have to question... who in the world doesn't understand the point of rescuing animals? I would for sure question that person's morals, as I question Prudence's. She even has the audacity to tell a grown woman how to do her job and as someone who actually works with grants and fundraising, that got under my skin.

Another annoyance of mine was the fact that Prudence really had a minimal reaction to her brand new "superpower". I think most people would have just a little bit more of a reaction if they could just suddenly do something like control karma.

I really love Quint. He is just so wholesome and good and I'm here for that. He's not perfect and doesn't always communicate well, but overall I really liked his character.

I spent so much of the book dreading the part where the romance begins because I just couldn't stand Prudence. However, towards the end, I will admit the romance was pretty cute.

The actual audiobook was great! Wonderful narrator and just really well done.

This story may very well work for lovers of enemies-to-lovers, slow-burn YA rom-com stories. However, be wary that if you can't handle judgey, pretentious main characters, you probably won't like this book. I also think that this could've easily worked the same or better as a slightly shorter story because the first half dragged on and on and on. SO overall, I think Instant Karma definitely has its audience, I just don't think I'm that audience. 2/5 stars.

Yes! I haven't had this much fun with an audiobook in a long time. If you're looking for a spectacularly narrated YA romance with a philosophical touch, THIS IS IT.

This is the story in a nutshell: a particularly judgemental girl Prudence wakes up with an ability to cast karma on people, so she enjoys the heck out f her unusual ability until it backfires with Quint - Pru's lab partner and main enemy.

If it sounds delicious, you are right. I just had so much fun following Pru's mis/adventures with her new supernatural ability to give people karma, which, seriously, who wouldn't want to do that?! It was wild, it was cute, it was funny and weird. The romance between Pru and Quint is EXACTLY what I look for when I want a YA romance, which I have very high standards for when there's little steam to make up for the real content. What's more, this book gives you so much to think about when it comes to morals, the right and wrong as well as love and hate.

With the superb narration, I am compelled to rate this one 5 stars.

*Thank you to the Publisher for a free advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The audiobook quality on netgalley is poor on 2x speed which is what I prefer to listen to. Has a weird echo. I decided to check this out from the library instead. I enjoyed the story - very sweet!

2.5 rounded to 3

I thought the idea of instant Karma was pretty interesting but almost wasn't highlighted enough. Definitely a cute YA romance story and I liked the Beatles references. I found it hard to connect with the main character but she did grow as the story went on and there were some good supporting characters. The narrator on this audio version was good!

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an ALC of this book!

This was so ridiculously cute! And not just because of the baby otters (although that definitely helped).

Prudence and Quint have had a horrible sophomore year as lab partners, clashing with everything they do, and because of their lack of teamwork they get a C on their final project. Prudence the perfectionist can't stand to have this blip on her record and want to redo the project, but can only do that if the perpetually tardy Quint agrees, but why would he want to work with her more when she's made the whole year miserable?

After a concussion may or may not have given Prudence the power of karmic justice, she spends her summer volunteering at the sea life rescue that Quint's mother runs in an attempt to convince him to help her redo the project, but she might learn that Quint wasn't the one in the wrong this whole time...

Prudence is SUCH an annoying character for the first half of the book. I could tell she had a ton of growing to do, and she definitely accomplished a lot of change throughout the book. Quint is sweet and adorable and I fell in love! I also loved Prudence's family, and who can resist the cuteness of sea lions being rehabilitated?

I loved the way this story turned out and was so happy with the ending, however I do wish there was more diversity among the characters.

Review will be added to Amazon, Audible, and Instagram the week of its release.

“Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head”
~John Lennon

What if you were suddenly given the ability to bring Karma instantly to anyone you thought was unkind, or unfair? Do you think it would make life better, or at least make you feel like life was more fair? That is a dilemma that Prudence Daniels, Pru, is faced with in Instant Karma by Marissa Meyer. Pru has always been an overachiever, and a bit judgmental of those who weren’t. And no one seems to exemplify under achiever to her as much as her assigned lab partner Quint Erickson. When their end of year project doesn’t go the way she had hoped, Pru feels forced to work with Quint even longer than she anticipated. And her new found karma ability always seems to backfire where he is concerned. The more she gets to know Quint the more she realizes there might be more to him than she was ever willing to see.

I was given an advanced copy of this book as an audio book in exchange for an honest review. Marissa Meyer is fabulous about creating lovable but flawed characters who seem relatable. This book was no exception. I loved all of the characters of this book. I especially loved Pru’s Beatles loving family and all of their quirkiness. Her twin brother in particular added a lot to this story for me and how well he knew his sister and almost balanced her out in a way. Instant Karma had me feeling all the angst and drama of a teenage rom-com and had me laughing out loud.

Overall it was a fabulous ride. The only critiques I might have is at times Pru was over the top in her judgements of others and it was hard to listen to/read. Also it was a bit predictable, but honestly it was predictable to me in that comforting way that most romances are.

The reader for the audio version is fantastic. She did a great job with distinguishing characters with her voice and was a delight to listen to. I give this audiobook 4 full stars.

I was so excited to see Marissa Meyer had a contemporary novel coming out and it did not disappoint. I always enjoy a good hate-to-love story. This one had an especially unique twist. The growth that the main character, Pru goes through is both well thought out and realistic. The setting being a marine animal rescue was even better. What can I say this had all the elements of a great story. If you enjoy YA contemporary romances then this is definitely one to pick up. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator did an excellent job at capturing Pru's voice as well.

I enjoyed this book but I did find the MC a bit annoying. She complains a lot and seems a bit stuck up. People make mistakes and we should try to be more understanding. Fortunately she learns this lesson after making a fool of herself a few times. I loved the saving the ocean vibe this book offered and I hope it opens awareness to the reads like it did the MC.

The audio version of this book was entertaining and I appreciate the early copy to review!

Thanks NetGalley for this audiobook preview!!

This was my first audiobook with NetGalley and I loved how easy it was to listen!
Prudence was a complex teen girl with many internal conflicts and strong opinions. There were some parts of the book where I was ready to scream about how she was wrong and needed to grow up! Quint was made to seem like the bad guy but he turned out to be wonderful! The narrator was a little inconsistent with her character voices. Overall this was a really enjoyable read!

**Review will be published November 2nd, 2020**

IT WAS CUTE.

Since I read this an audio book ARC, I wanted to mention my thoughts on the audio. I thought the narrator was great and found it to be easy listening. I kept it at 1.5x – 1.75x depending on what I was doing at the time while listening. Definitely would recommend reading it as an audio book if you enjoy that option!

I love Marissa Meyer’s books. I am a big fan of her fantasy books. Reading her first contemporary romance? ALL OVER IT.

This was a cute Beatles-inspired young adult romance. I loved the beach setting and marine ecology aspects. It felt relevant without being pushy and I learned a lot just from the setting alone. There was knowledge of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing multiple marine animals and the center goes about achieving their ultimate goal of getting these animals back to the wild.

Prudence was our dear main character. Oh, how I struggled with her for 80% of the book. I kept expecting some more character growth from her, but felt it happened too close to the end. She leaned towards selfish and so completely single-mindedly focused that I wanted to jump in the book and tell her what she’s missing. With all of the damage done before getting to some evolution in her character it became a bit of a let down.

Quint was precious. And I’m genuinely amazed he was cool with Prudence being rude to him over and over again. I loved his interactions and banter. Quint had a great back story and was clearly devoted to helping the sea creatures in his care. I loved his nature and passion.

I did love their initial at last they kissed moment. It came at the right time and was sweet. I would have loved a longer ending with more of them because by the time I was really feeling it, the ending had arrived.

It’s overall a fun book and I’m happy that I read it. I love Meyer’s writing and will continue to read all the books by her. I’m also hoping for maybe more books with Pru’s brother, Jude (who I adored) and maybe even her friends? I thought there was some open options for more contemporaries in this world and I would love to read those too.

Overall audience notes:

Young adult contemporary romance
Language: very little and light
Romance: kisses
Violence: injured sea animals that washed ashore, someone breaking their leg from a fall

I'll have to admit this book had a rocky start for me. I was so excited for this YA Contemporary with all the Beatle's references and who wouldn't want to dole out some Karma now and again.

Prudence was a difficult character for me. There are times when I enjoy an MC who isn't very likeable but that is only when it's well done and makes sense. Prudence is just a freaking jerk for no reason. She's really selfish, self-absorbed, and entitled for no reason if you ask me. She thinks everyone around her is lazy but doesn't actually take the time to get to know them. I struggled through a large part of the first half with her but over time when the plot line picked up and more started happening I started to focus more on it and less on Pru herself. She wasn't the person I was most interested in. I wanted to know more about Quint because I knew he wasn't the type of person Pru was making him out to be.

Quint saved this book for me. He is so sweet! He helps his mom run her non-profit animal rescue center and is often late for school because he's out helping her with a rescue. He spends a great deal of his time at the center and when Pru shows up one day to check it out the competition begins. As a team they were supposed to come up with an eco-friendly plan for their biology course but between Pru's need for control she wasn't able to see what an asset Quint would have been for the project because he'd given up on trying to help her and went ahead with the paper on his own.

Now they've come to an agreement that if Pru volunteers at the center for four weeks than Quint will help her get the "A" she believed she deserved on the paper in the first place. The two of them grown on each other and Pru starts to realize Quint isn't who she thought he was and is actually a really good person. He may even be a better person than she is.

Overall there were parts that I felt weren't necessary but didn't take away from the story too much. I actually would've been fine without Pru's ability to dole out Karma because to be honest it didn't actually feel like it was a major part of the story. I listened to the audio and it was really well done and the narrator was familiar to me. I'd recommend the audio version for sure!

Prudence is type A with a drive that is reminiscent of Sandra Bullock's character in The Proposal. Her classmate Quint is... not. He's often late to class-- even on the day of their Big Project Presentation. Suffice it to say that they didn't enjoy being lab partner this year. So imagine Quint's surprise when Prudence shows up at his mom's sea animal rescue center to volunteer for the summer. With the help of a temporary ability to mete out karmic justice at her discretion, Prudence learns that Quint --and others-- is more than her one-dimensional judgments led her to believe. In fact, second, third, and 512th impressions might just lead to unexpected warm-fuzzies and great make-out sessions.

Instant Karma follows the same theme that Meyer explores in Renegades: the world isn't black and white, there is more than good and bad-- but with a slight twist: don't let first impressions or singular judgements color your perception of a person. Honestly, when I realized that similarity, I was a bit disappointed. I loved that theme in the superheroes archetype because it was different and turned the trope on its head, but it felt tired and overdone in this genre.

I will still order this for my YA collection, but only because of the name recognition and because it'll be a good read-alike for Jenna Evans Welch's YA romances.

PS Rebecca Soler is the voice actor for the audiobook, and she perfectly executes it, as is expected.

This was such a cute book! I may have downloaded it without reading the synopsis and therefore didn’t realize that there was an odd little magical element to it. Honestly I think the story would’ve been better without that magical element, Prudence’s ability to dole out instant karma to people by simply making a fist or snapping her fingers.

But overall this was a really cute teen rom com, and I enjoyed it a lot!

The audio was good, but I did think the narrator exaggerated Pru’s uptightness a BIT too much.

The roundabout plot of this book was really cute, and the setting and romance felt refreshing. It was a welcomed read!

Title: Instant Karma
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: (ebook) Feiwel & Friends
(Audiobook) Macmillan Audio
Rating 3/5star

“Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead.”

Instant Karma is told from the point of view of Prudence Daniels, an overachiever, perfectionist who has been stuck all year with Quint Erikson, a laid back, tardy, unprepared student. Her worst nightmare. The school year ends and while hanging out with her best friend Pru gets a small head injury that gives her the ability to impart Instant Karma on anyone. Anyone except Quint.

I really liked the concept of the story. It had really great potential but I also think I came in expecting something like the books I’ve read by Meyer before. I think I would’ve enjoyed the story more has Pru not been so hard to like. She was whiny, stubborn, and gave off a little entitled vibe which I assume comes from her being a perfectionist. I felt like she had very little growth, everytime I felt she was redeemed she’d go back to “I am right you are wrong mentality”. I think having Quints point of view to see her from a different perspective might’ve helped. I kept feeling like the characters were molding themselves to her personality instead of her changing. In my opinion whatever growth she had was minimal.

Okay well that was my rant. This is Meyer’s first contemporary young adult novel.

That being said the audiobook was really entertaining. The narrator does a good job or portraying Pru. Her voice was very nice and the flow of the audio was good.

I received this audiobook from the publisher (@macmillan.audio ) via @netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Remember that these are my opinions and should in no way reflect what you may think of the book. Please still give it a chance.

#instantkarma #youngadult #enemiestolovers #animalrescue #babyotters #sealions #harborseals #rescuecenters #environmentalcleanip #beach #slowburn

I loved this so much! This has been one of my most anticipated reads of 2020, so I was so honored to receive an audiobook ARC from the publisher on Netgalley. I devoured the whole thing in one day.

Prudence has the worst lab partner who's always late and doesn't seem at all interested in focusing on the assignment. When they receive a C on their group assignment, she begs for a chance to make the grade up and is granted to chance, but the catch is, it has to be done in true collaboration with her partner. He's completely fine with the C and not at all interested in doing the assignment again.

That sets these two characters on an amazing summer of learning to work together, learning more about each other, and Prue gets to learn a whole lot more while volunteering for several weeks at a wildlife rescue nonprofit that Quint's mother works at and Quint has been volunteering at for years.

There was also this thing that played a big part of the story, where Prue had a head injury that she believed gave her the ability to inflict "instant karma" on people she observed doing mostly bad but some good things.

What I loved so much about this book was how Prue got to learn that there are always other sides of a situation that may not be visible to others in the moment, or maybe ever, that when taken into consideration makes something that looks bad not seem so bad after all. You never know what other things might be at play, and I think that's a lesson we could all stand to learn.

The romance between Prue and Quint was a hate to love, slow burn that I thought was done so well all the way around. There's something so satisfying about a good hate to love romance when the story really lays the foundation and builds and builds and builds on it the way I felt this one did.

There was a lot of reference in this story to oceanic wildlife that to me was reminiscent of 50 First Dates, and that really took this story from good to great for me. Lots of rich detail. It seemed like a lot of research went into this book in that aspect. Also, for the record, this book was also a bit reminiscent to me of What You Wish For by Katherine Center.

As for the audiobook narration, I thought this was well done for a single narrator. Nothing detracted from the story at all.

Even though this was a YA romance, I do think readers of Contemporary Romance will enjoy this story, even if YA isn't usually their cup of tea. I tend to prefer my YA to be fantasy when I do read YA, but I really just loved this one.

5/5 ⭐️
Aaaww! This is such a cute book! I loved Meyers Lunar Chronicles so I was super exited to read another book by her! I really loved the message this book conveys, and the choices you make throughout your life. The romance was cute and I loved the extra add of the sea creatures!

First off, I loved that the whole book revolves around a marine life rescue center- always good to encourage people to care for wildlife and the environment. However, I was not a fan of the protagonist or her love interest. She was pretty insufferable throughout and their relationship feeds off the old trope that if someone is mean to you then they must actually have a crush on you. Barf. Then there's also the whole sorta supernatural thing where the insufferable girl gets the power to clench her fists and give people what they deserve (either good or bad), where she ends up coming across like a mini Karen getting mad at people and making them pay. It's a cute concept and teens may like it, but the protagonist got on my nerves.

A really cute book. I loved the backdrop of the animal rescue and vintage record store. I do wish there was more of the secondary characters in the book. They were all so well written. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was great. I’m glad I listened to this even though I don’t generally go for high school based characters. I’d definitely read more by this author.