Kaniesha Reviews: Coin Heist ARC by Elisa Ludwig

Title: Coin Heist
Series: Stand Alone
Author: Elisa Ludwig
Release date: June 10, 2014
Publisher: Adaptive Studios
Genres: contemporary, action
Goodreads, buy the book

The last place you’d expect to find a team of criminals is at a prestigious Philadelphia prep school. But on a class trip to the U.S. Mint – which prints a million new coins every 30 minutes – an overlooked security flaw becomes far too tempting for a small group of students to ignore.

United by dire circumstances, these unlikely allies – the slacker, the nerd, the athlete, and the "perfect" student – band together to attempt the impossible: rob the U.S. Mint. The diverse crew is forced to confront their true beliefs about each other and themselves as they do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Elisa Ludwig's Coin Heist is a fun, suspenseful, and compelling thriller, told from the revolving perspectives of four teens, each with their own motive for committing a crime that could change all of their lives for the better—if they can pull it off.

Review: I received a copy of Coin Heist from Netgalley, thank you!

This is going to be another of my five star reviews: meaning I just squeal and spazz and try to convince you why you should give this book a chance.

Coin Heist begins like your normal high school contemporary novel until the second and third povs show up, then once you get to the fourth you know something good’s about to go down. In this book we follow Alice, Jason, Dakota and Benny through the biggest experience of their lives: a coin heist. Yes, they are actually going to rob a building and you’re going to be at the edge of your seat the entire time.

The very best part of this book is the four main characters. It’s highly possible that you’ll be able to directly relate to one of them, especially if you’re younger. Personally, I’m a bit like Alice. Proud computer nerd. (I’m not nearly as impressive as her, though). Jason is a music-loving pothead and though you’d look at someone like that and immediately dismiss them, he has his skills and talents like the rest of them. Dakota is your pretty, popular, vice president overachiever. The rest of us look at girls like her and turn up our noses, but Dakota works her ass off and I’m glad for another first person pov of a character like this. When we first get a look at Benny, we see it through Jason’s eyes and we just see a tough looking football player that everyone kind of glances over because he’s at this expensive high school on a scholarship. Of course, there’s more to him than that: he’s incredibly skilled with mechanics and he can remember the layout of a building after only spending an hour around. Basically, these four are completely different from each other but still find a way to work together and pull off this amazing (but incredibly illegal) stunt.

By the end of the book, I was left kind of breathless just thinking “How in the WORLD?” These kids are so brilliant and uniquely them and because of who they are and how they were raised, they were able to do what they did together. I think that’s the most important theme of the story, that you never know who you’re going to find a friend in and what friend you’re going to find an (theoretical) enemy in. Especially because the four of them working together was not a cake walk; they struggle, argue, yell at each other, and find flaws in each other’s ideas. But that’s the point. You can’t reach the end without facing your problems head on.

Definitely check out Coin Heist if you get the chance. If you don’t like it by 20% in then it’s probably not for you but if you get that far definitely do not put it down, trust me.

Rating: 5 stars.