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Saturday 7 February 2015

Book Review: 32 Seconds by Johanna K. Pitcairn

About the book

To the average onlooker, the city of Los Angeles represents glitz, glamour, and the celebrity lifestyle. But to seventeen-year-old Julie Jones, the city is a vast host of problems she’s longing to get away from. The latest? An unfortunate disagreement with her ex-boyfriend Mark—one that could land her in some serious hot water.

So rather than face the troubles that torment her, Julie decides to run away from her old life and start fresh somewhere new. But her parents aren’t on board with the plan, and she soon finds her bank accounts frozen and her wallet empty.

With just seventy-five dollars and a full tank of gas, the troubled teen is far too stubborn to turn around and head home. So what’s a girl to do?

What Julie doesn’t know is that her travels are about to take her somewhere unexpected—a place where she’ll be forced to come face to face with the ghosts of her past in order to secure her future.

A tale of redemption, hope, and freedom lost and found, 32 Seconds is a thought-provoking exploration into the human spirit and the nature of forgiveness.





About the author:


Johanna K. Pitcairn has dreamed of becoming a writer since childhood--authoring her first novel at the age of nine, and countless poems, stories, and screenplays by the age of seventeen. Later, rather than pursuing a career as a director and screenwriter, she decided to go to law school, driven by her father's opinion that "writing does not pay the bills."





Ten years later, she moved to New York City, which inspired her to go back to the excitement, wonder, and constant change of being a writer. Pitcairn is a huge fan of psychological-thriller novels and movies, and delves into her hopes, fears, friends, enemies, and everything in between in her own writing.








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My review:

When the story began, I figured it must be a category of YA novels tracing the life of a crass, rich, spoilt girl. I couldn't have been more wrong, for soon enough (read: two chapters later), the story was on a track entirely contrasting and different from what I had initially anticipated. And the contrast was a good one. With symbolic meanings and a parallelism throughout, the author has brought out a refreshing narration and story form. here's a cue: Julie is in her own brain. And she tries to figure out and make sense of, when she became the insensitive, indifferent and merciless moron that she had become.

I especially like how the author has described the problems of youth, teenage, the mess and confusion that life becomes. All the thoughts that cross a teenager's mind are there in black and white, in their bare and unaltered form.
"I didn't like people staring at me, especially when they thought they knew who I was." 
Silently but powerfully, memories play an indispensable role in the whole story. They overwhelm us, they empower us, they weaken us, they abandon us, we wipe them off, we try to stick to them, it is as if all paradoxes are associated with them, all at once.
I opine that if a book is able to surprise you and bring in a suspense to keep you hooked, then a lot of thought has gone into its writing. This one scored brownie points just because of that!
Also, unlike other books I have been reading of late, this one is embellished with literary pleasures, and ultimately the pleasures of reading. It has a lot of dialogues, thoughts and monologues expressed in a way that enables us to extract more to contemplate than just the plot. Which is what I like the most in any book. Consider this, "My guts twisted in knots a well-seasoned sailor couldn't disentangle"

My Judgement:
I definitely recommend this book to readers who'd love to read to keep a memory of having read it1


Book links:



This book review is a part of b00k r3vi3w Tours.


2 comments:

  1. Loved your review Kritika and agree with you. This book came as a surprise to me too and exceeded my expectations. A definite recommendation from my side. :)
    Do checkout my review here: http://www.njkinnysblog.com/2015/02/book-review-32-seconds-by-jk-pitcairn.html

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  2. Followed you on Bloglovin and happy to connect. :)

    -Nikita @Njkinny's World of Books & Stuff

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