Instant Karma
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4.4 • 31 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer's young adult contemporary romance, a girl is suddenly gifted with the ability to cast instant karma on those around her – both good and bad.
Chronic overachiever Prudence Barnett 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.
When Pru resigns herself to working at the rescue center for extra credit, she begins to uncover truths about baby otters, environmental upheaval, and romantic crossed signals—not necessarily in that order. Her newfound karmic insights reveal how thin the line is between virtue and vanity, generosity and greed . . . love and hate… and fate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Before an outing with friends gives her supernatural powers, the biggest trial of perfectionist Prudence Barnett's sophomore year has been her lab partner, Quint Erickson. He's sloppy and runs late, and just when she should be free of him, a chance to improve their bad final presentation grade makes her volunteer at the sea animal rehabilitation center that he helps his mother run. Now, Pru is slogging through fish-gut-related chores alongside annoying Quint but also enjoying her new power, which gives her the ability to mete out instant karmic justice upon anyone she feels is exhibiting selfish behavior, like stealing from a vending machine or defacing a sign. She finds the power satisfying until she realizes that good and bad are less clear, and less binary, than she thought. Meyer (the Lunar Chronicles) turns a rom-com trope uptight protagonist meets free spirit and learns to have fun into an interesting meditation on judgment and justice. Readers who push through the slow beginning will be rewarded with a book that offers a real sense of place (a touristy Southern California beach community filled with otters and sea lions) alongside a satisfying romance and an unsanctimonious lesson about the importance of changing one's ideas about oneself and others when needed. Ages 12 up.
