It’s been roughly a year and a half since I read this book. That being said, I give mad props to book bloggers who manage to juggle their blogging responsibilities while maintaining good grades in their classes because I had absolutely no time to manage my blog during school. However, I have now graduated from college with a degree in English and creative writing, and I’m ready to start catching up!

However, lots of my reviews for books I read a long time ago (like this one) simply aren’t going to be very detailed… That’s my fault for having put these off for so long, and not writing reviews when I finish a book, like I used to. So instead of my usually detailed “What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like” sections, I’m going to give a basic overview of why I rated this book the way I did (since I, unfortunately, can’t remember enough to make a pros and cons list).

Coin Heist started out okay enough for me, although the four points of view made it difficult for me to engage in the narrative. One thing that I’ve found especially difficult for writers of multiple-POV novels is making the characters’ voices different enough that it’s believable. Unfortunately, Ludwig did not succeed in creating those distinctions for me, and the characters all blurred and muddled together in a way they shouldn’t have for how “diverse” they were supposed to be.

In addition, the concept of teenagers robbing a bank has the taste of “lame teenage movie” for me because there’s no good way for it to end. Either the characters have to decide not to go through with their plan (since promoting robbery to teenagers isn’t a great idea) or something will happen that they need go through with their plans in order to stop something bad from happening (even though they’ve changed their minds). And then if that happens, they will either barely escape, or they will be caught by security guards who let them go because they didn’t mean any harm anymore. This is almost exactly how Coin Heist ended, with a few more details specific to the plot of the novel (what with the school’s financial situation and everything). It was like there was no way to impress me as a reader because the ending had been determined by the basic plot idea.

While nothing stood out to me so much as to make me hate this book, it also failed to shine as an impressive novel because the characters were lackluster and one-dimensional, and there was absolutely no surprise or suspense in the plot at all. I wish I could have enjoyed it more (and I wish I could have written a better review… a year and a half ago), but it needed more suspense and color to make it stand out.

(http://thaliasbooks.tumblr.com/post/153318515077/coin-heist-review)

Well, 2015 was kind of a bust as far as reviewable books goes.

Don't let the read count fool you: I read about twelve books for one class in one semester at the beginning of the year, which were all YA/middle grade. I read about five or six books roughly for each English class I take, and multiply that by three and a half semesters in 2015, about three classes each semester with that kind of reading load. I read a lot in 2015. But somehow, I ended up with only about seventeen or so books I felt like I could actually review.

I read a lot of classics, things I'd been wanting to get to for awhile and finally got to read in class, as well as some young adult stuff for some more genre-specific classes I took. I read more than anyone else I know in school right now, and although it's been tough to read for fun and I've had to take a major break from reviewing in the past year, it wasn't because I wasn't reading. But I had to jump from book to book so quickly that I could hardly process enough to want to write a review for what I read, and it seemed so haphazard to only write reviews for a handful of them.

So I decided to scrap all the books I read for class last year and write reviews when I eventually reread them--on my own time. There are lots of books I read for class that I'll want to revisit (like Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for instance), and others I probably won't ever attempt again (like The Bone People). And although it means that my "read count" for challenges both here and on GoodReads make it seem like I barely made a dent in my 70 book goal, I think I easily read that many books in 2015, although it won't show in my reviews.

I am making a goal for 2016 to be better. I'm going to be super busy for awhile, at least through this semester (which ends at the end of February). I'm in a musical, I'm a vice president in a club, I'm a part-time employee, I'm helping to judge a book award, and I'm a straight-A student. I turned twenty-one yesterday, so my new years' resolutions usually hold a heavier weight for me because I'm also looking toward a new year of my life, and another kind of fresh start. I'm saddened by the fact that my love for reading has become more work than pleasure, so I'm determined to make sure I read at least one chapter of something not for school each day so I can keep up with my passion and the books I've accumulated. It's probably best for me to set small goals, especially because I recently went on a book buying binge, and now I can look forward to 2016 by reading books I've put on hold a long time. 

So, here's to the new year! I'll be reading more (although I set a more reasonable pleasure goal at 30 for this year--even my summer break will be shorter than usual, and I'll have graduated by Halloween), and I'll be getting to books I've wanted for read for a long time. I've started Fellowship of the Ring over again because Tolkien just makes me downright happy, but I'm getting new stuff in as well. All in all, I'm excited for what 2016 and being twenty-one brings me. Above are the first ten reviews I'll be writing for stuff I read in 2015 (for fun). 

Thanks for all your patience this year, and here's to progress!

Guess what??

It ended almost exactly how I predicted! Isn't that weird?

//sarcasm

So, of course you can't have a novel about teenagers who decide to do something highly illegal and let them go through with it--either with successfully completeing their mission (morally wrong--can't really promote that in YA) or actually dealing with the consequences of being caught (going to prison). 

So they had a change of heart! And, instead of realizing what they were going to do was wrong, they changed the plan because teenagers get into fights and get pissed at eachother for stupid reasons!

Now we're here. And they have to go through it anyway ("for the right reasons" and all), which means I'm predicting, they'll either finish the job and destroy the money as planned, or they'll get caught but the guards/police won't charge them with anything because either they didn't want the money now, or something along the lines of "All this money is faulty anyway--pay for the material, and the school is a good enough cause for us to donate to." 

Something like that, right?

There are four different points of view running around in this book, and they all sound exactly the same (except with different backstories). The plot seems far fetched to me and not very realstic, but I'm willing to see how it plays out. I wish the chapters overlapped a bit more--when it switches point of view, the new character doesn't seem to address anything the previous chapter went through, which bothers me. I need a little more connection between everything to make it feel more cohesive.

The writing is okay, but not great. We'll see.