I listened to the audio version of this (Thanks MacMillan Audio for the advance copy!), and at first I hated it--Pru is not a likable protagonist and the narrator leans in to that. But I stuck with it, and warmed up to Pru--she is a very realistic character, and I found her weaknesses to be completely believable. I grew to like a protagonist that isn't innately good, who has some pretty big character flaws, and I liked seeing her work to overcome them enough to find love and create something good in her community. At the end of the novel, she's still Pru, but a better version of herself.

The story follows her at the end of a frustrating sophomore year, having been lab partners with someone she deems a slacker, lazy, and infuriating (Quint), and they get a C on their final project. She begs her teacher to let them redo it, and he allows it on one condition--they have to work together. At first Quint refuses, but then relents when Pru agrees to volunteer at his mother's nonprofit sea animal rescue center. She learns who Quint really is, a lot about herself, and even more about karma. The story has a lot of layers, is really well written, and the setting of a small, tourist beach town came alive as I listened. I definitely recommend this, but if you're not a big audio fan, I'd recommend reading instead--I think I would have liked it a lot more that way.

<i>Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy<i>

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 mean gossips, but there is one person on whom her powers consistently backfire: Quint Erickson, her slacker of a lab partner. Quint is annoyingly cute and impressively noble, especially when it comes to his work with the rescue center for local sea animals.

I didn't vibe with the appropritation so i dont mind not showing much thought

THis was a great book, she does it everytime I read a book by her. This was an adorable story and everyone should read it.

Thanks to #netgalley for the copy.

This is a really sweet and endearing book. While I could have almost taken the story just fine without the semi-supernatural instant karma power, I can appreciate the lesson that drove the story. The characters were well developed and even the side characters were quite interesting in their backgrounds. I wish Jude had been a little better developed, I feel like I knew more about Ari than Jude. Overall a great quick read for teens who enjoy personal growth stories with a hint of romance.

Charming performance by the narrator, who makes the 14 hour long audiobook sail by quicker than it is.

When I was a teen, YA was still fairly innocent. This feels like it was inspired by the YA of that era. It is a good book, but I am not sure I would call it great. The magical aspect was a nice concept, but it feels like it could have been better utilized in another story.

The story revolves around Pru, a fairly annoying teen girl who cannot seem to give others a chance to do or explain anything. She especially cannot find it in herself to give her lab partner Quint a chance. She hijacks their projects, assuming he’s unwilling to do his part.

Then Pru decides she’s been given gift from the universe, when she sees what she perceives as a wrong, the universe almost immediately dishes out karma to the “wrongdoers”.

Then Pru finds she needs Quint to get a grade she’d be okay with. She must face the fact that maybe she was wrong about many things and people. She begins questioning whether or not she’s as good as she thinks she is and whether or not she was right about others.

The romance didn’t wow me, but that’s okay, it’s an innocent first love kind of romance. Even the instant karma didn’t seem vital to the story (ironic given the title). The standout aspect of the story is really Pru discovering who she is.

The narrator really brought Pru to life. I’m not sure I’d have appreciated the character as much had I read the book myself.

I volunteered to listen to this book through netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Marissa Meyer has done it again everyone. Her writing style is spectacular. The narrator did a fantastic job reading this book. It keeps your attention from the first minute. The pacing of this story is good. The characters are enjoyable and described well. It is written good. I adored Prudence's and Quint's characters. You feel as though you are the characters.The friendships and relationships within this story is great. This audiobook is in stores now for CA $44.75 (CAD).

I’ve been excited about this book for so long and I would’ve loved to done a review on this, but I was approved and nearly instantly the title was archived and I cannot download it. Pity..

Marissa Meyers fans rejoice! A new book has been released. But if you’re expecting something similar to The Lunar Chronicles or Renegades, this is NOT that book. Instant Karma is a contemporary YA about Prudence Barnett, a rather tightly wound high achiever. As the book opens, Prudence has been paired with Quint Erickson for a science project. Quint is cute, likeable, and highly unreliable and, as Prudence expects, he fails to even meet her low expectations of him. The two can not see eye to eye on their project and as a result, Prudence is at risk of making her lowest grade ever. She’s given one chance to work with Quint to improve their grade, but he’s definitely not into it and Prudence can’t imagine spending any more time with him. But soon she finds herself finding out more about Quint and discovers how prevalent a role karma is playing all around her. From punishing hecklers at a karaoke event to rewarding people who do good, karma seems to be all around—maybe even influenced by Prudence?
Instant Karma is an enjoyable, modern, story and Prudence, though she can be way too high strung sometimes, even becomes kind of likeable. Quint is always likeable too, but some of the other “characters” really steal the show. While Instant Karma isn’t as complex of a story as some of Meyer’s other novels, it’s still engaging and enjoyable. I received an ARC of the audiobook for this novel and found the performance to be great. The performer did a great job with the voice of the characters and seemed remained true to the energy and mood of the story throughout.

*I received an ARC audiobook of Instant Karma from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I've read a lot of young adult novels, but have never seen a character like Prudence Barnett. She's a perfectionist, judgmental, awkward, smart, creative, challenging. Grades are everything to her, and when she and her biology partner, Quint, end up with a less than satisfactory grade, Prudence is out to rectify that.

Instant Karma is an illuminating journey on what is and isn't deserved from a karmic perspective. Does the universe dole out justice? Not only is there a lot to learn and digest by the characters, but there's also a lot of food for thought to absorb for readers—or in my case, listeners. I loved how Marissa centered this story around an animal rescue center. I love that Prudence's family owns a record shop, and I love that she has lots of siblings. Most of all, I love Prudence and Quint. Prudence grows a lot as a person, recognizing her strengths and also coming to recognize that her judgments, words, and actions aren't always as kind as she'd like them to be. There's a great message here.

This was a fun, heartfelt, wonderful book filled with some cosmic magic. Definitely recommend!

Prudence is an overachiever and she is highly judgmental towards others, believing that she is never wrong. When she randomly gets the power to cast karmic justice on those around her, she does so without considering the full story of why a person acted a specific way. After a team presentation goes horribly awry, she gets her own karmic punishment of having to work with the partner that she believes let her down. He manages to get her to actually consider the bigger picture and even the world around her.

I wanted to love this. I really like Marissa Meyer and really love listening to Rebecca Soler. Unfortunately, I found much of this book to be irritating. I'm not sure if this would have been better for me if it had been a book vs audiobook

Prudence is the teen version of a Karen, which makes it difficult to like her or want to listen to her story. I wasn't particularly thrilled with her romantic counterpart, though he was better than her. Meyer can write great characters, which pull me in, but this book didn't have the characters that I needed to read about.

The audio reader works better with the AI scifi book that Meyers writes, but her flat affect added to the unlikeablity of the main character.

The narrator for Instant Karma was spectacular. She did a good job of bringing each character to life. The story itself is good, but the main character Prudence is really annoying and I would not be friends with her in real life!

Be prepared to despise the main character Prudence. But also be prepared to open your heart to her and learn from her mistakes. I think Marissa Meyer did a great job creating a main character that is dynamic and relatable (in both good and bad ways). This was a fun read that had more depth to it than I was expecting.
Thank you NetGalley for the chance to listen to this book in exchange for an honest review.

So ... Prudence kind of got on my nerves in the first 25% of the book. I liked the last 25% the best and then the middle 50%.

There was a lot of information in this book about marine wildlife and efforts that go into their rehabilitation; this was really interesting. I can't remember reading any books that have marine biology in their story line.

The creativity and teamwork between the main protagonists, Quint and Prudence was very satisfying.

Also the beach fundraiser was a really great idea. And I liked how the little mystery regarding the disappearing money unfolded and worked itself out.

So ... I was going to rate this as a 4 star; but on reflection I think I'm going to bump it up to a 5 because there is so much about the book that I really liked.

I loved this little ya romance. I have read Marissa Meyer’s sci-fi and fantasy in the past and I’ve always enjoyed them. I was glad to see this realistic fiction from her!

I hadn't read or listened to this author before but I can easily understand why she is so popular. This romantic, sweet story is certain to resonate with YA readers. It's a combination of a coming-of-age story interspersed with a fantasy twinge that was so much fun. I wish I had the capacity to issue "instant karma."
The book , also, served as a learning tool. The discussion of businesses, non-profits versus profits, and how things can go up and down so quickly, was a great learning tool.
Looking forward to catching up on the author's past reads and future ones!

Harmless but consequently less dynamic than Meyer's other work, especially Renegades which I read most recently. I suppose I prefer her spec works.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advanced audiobook copy of “Instant Karma” by Marissa Meyer. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was so excited for this narrator who also narrated ‘The Hazel Wood’ series. She has such a great voice especially for YA and she made the book easy to read especially since it was so long. This is a lengthy contemporary book. I’ve listened to fantasy books with shorter play times.

The story follows overachiever Prudence who gains “the powers of the universe” in the form of “instant karma” she can inflict on people for good or bad (although it takes a long time for her to realize she an also use the powers for good as she’s too focused on punishing people.) While the title comes from a John Lennon song, the way the author utilizes the concept of karma is cultural appropriation that doesn’t even need to be there. Prudence’s powers become such a minor subplot that I forgot she had them multiple times. I’m sure the author liked having the title tie into Prudence’s powers as the book is full of nods to music and bands like The Beatles, but I feel the author could have called Prudence’s powers something else or taken them out entirely since they become an afterthought.

I also think the romance could have been taken out and the focus shifting to Prudence and Quint learning to be friends. This is pitched as enemies to lovers but I was not rooting for the couple at all. In fact, I wasn’t rooting for Prudence in general. She’s extremely unlikeable and doesn’t learn or grow from her mistakes. I would have liked to have Quint’s POV or just let him be the protagonist. It didn’t feel like Prudence deserved the titular powers bestowed on her. If anything, they made her even more unlikable as she then thought the universe was acting through her and refused to take any responsibility. She twists herself into some convoluted mental gymnastics to justify taking money from an animal rescue center (Prudence by the way doesn’t like animals if you need more evidence of her being unlikeable) but someone else steals the money first. In fact, the whole book’s plot crawls and not a lot happens so this mystery doesn’t occur until late in the book. Prudence is accused of stealing the money she was totally planning to steal and then has to clear her name. Quint says horrible things to her and is mad for weeks until Prudence clears her name. She then confesses she was going to steal the money and he barely reacts and is totally fine with it because the author had to shove them back together at the end.

There are also additional subplots that go nowhere and serve little purpose whereas subplots like Prudence’s parents failing business are completely ignored when they could have used more page time. Prudence’s best friend Ari is a waste of pages. She does nothing but act like a mouthpiece for the author to criticize teens not appreciating “classic” artists like the Beatles which seems like an odd choice since this is a YA book?

In conclusion, the setting showed some promise and some of the side characters were interesting but Prudence needed a serious overhaul. I would have rather read this book from Quint’s POV and had it not be a romance and not have the karma cultural appropriation. I love romance books but the romance here was lacking. It would have been more interesting and unique to have Prudence and Quint learn to understand one another and grow to be friends.

2/5 stars

This wasn't my favorite Marissa Meyer book honestly. The romance was cute but I didn't love Prudence a ton and the whole instant karma I don't think added to the book. Again it was overall cute but I didn't love it sadly.