The Fifteenth Minute by Sarina Bowen

Title: The Fifteenth Minute (The Ivy Years #5)

Author: Sarina Bowen

Publisher: Rennie Road Books

Release Date: October 13, 2015

Source: ARC from Publicist

Buy the Book: Amazon / B&N / Kobo

Freshman Lianne Chalice is known to millions of fans as Princess Vindi. But sometimes a silver screen sorceress just wants to hang up her wand, tell her manager to shove it, and become a normal college student. Too bad that’s harder than it looks.

She’s never lived a normal life. She hasn’t been to school since kindergarten. And getting close to anyone is just too risky—the last boy she kissed sold the story to a British tabloid.

But she can’t resist trying to get close to Daniel “DJ” Trevi, the hot, broody guy who spins tunes for hockey games in the arena. There’s something haunting his dark eyes and she needs to know more.

DJ’s genius is for expressing the mood of the crowd with a ten second song snippet. With just a click and a fade, he can spread hope, pathos or elation among six thousand screaming fans.

Too bad his college career is about to experience the same quick fade-out as one of his songs. He can’t get close to Lianne, and he can’t tell her why. And the fact that she seems to like him at all? Incredible.

Over the summer, I read the first four books in Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Years series in the span of a week. While traveling. That’s how addicting the books were. And the moment I finished, I was dying for the next one. And when I got The Fifteenth Minute, I read it all in a day.

Lianne Challice hasn’t had the most normal life up until now. To most of the world, she is Princess Vindi, a sorceress in a series of blockbuster movies. Now in her second semester of freshman year, all Lianne wants is to be a normal college student. And that includes a boyfriend. But when you’re famous, finding a boy who won’t sell your relationship secrets to the tabloids is easier said than done. When she meets DJ, the guy in charge of music at hockey games, Lianne knows she can trust him. But DJ isn’t having the best year, and the last thing he needs is to be getting close to Lianne. But no matter what he does, Lianne keeps coming back. DJ can only keep pulling away for so long before Lianne doesn’t come back.

I binge read series pretty often. It’s kind of something you end up doing at some point or another when you’re an avid reader. But binge reading a series while also travelling with a friend is something I hadn’t done before. But it’s something I did when I picked up the first four books of Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Years. Basically, any time I wasn’t doing touristy stuff, I had my face glued to my Kindle (thankfully, the friend I was travelling with reads just as much as I do so she understood). And once I finished those four books, I was DYING for more. And so the moment it landed in my inbox, I started reading The Fifteenth Minute. And Sarina Bowen did not let me down. I DEVOURED this book. Like, stayed-on-my-couch-all-day-couldn’t-put-my-kindle-down devoured. It was just that good. And it should come as no surprise that I totally loved the romance between DJ and Lianne. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the kind of romance that just puts a smile on my face and makes me hope they can overcome all the obstacles standing in their way. It was just adorable.

But one of the things that I have absolutely loved about Sarina Bowen’s books is how she weaves serious subjects into the story without taking away from the relatively fun nature of the book. And she did it again in an interesting way in The Fifteenth Minute. It’s a pretty well-known fact that universities everywhere have serious issues when it comes to sexual assault cases. When we hear about these cases, it’s typically because the schools aren’t doing anything to help the victims. But with this story, Sarina Bowen showed the other side of the problem. She showed how schools struggle to investigate cases and sometimes someone gets wrongly accused because the schools are so worried about making sure they don’t get any flack for not doing anything for the victim. Through DJ’s story, Sarina Bowen really showed that this can happen and how it can be really damaging to someone. 

I shouldn’t really have to say it, but I loved DJ and Lianne. They were just so freaking adorable together. On the one hand you had this girl who is an actress and has connections to all these famous people, but who really just wants to get away from all that. On the other, you have this boy who can’t believe that someone like Lianne would like him. But they were so perfect for each other. And I loved them individually as well, obviously. I just wanted people to stop giving Lianne grief about being a famous actress and just let her live her life. And I loved how much of a geek she was, whether it was writing scripts for her favourite video games or making pop culture references in conversation. I just loved her. And DJ might officially be my favourite boy that Sarina Bowen has written. I loved him, plain and simple. And I felt horrible for what he was going through. And I wanted everything to work out for him. And he was just adorable and I loved him. I don’t really know how else to say it. Maybe I should have gone to my university’s hockey games in case we had a cute guy in charge of the music. But that’s besides the point. The point is that I loved Lianne and DJ something fierce. And I loved all the glimpses I got of the different people from the previous books, and those just reaffirmed that Bella is awesome.

In case it wasn’t clear by this long and ramble-y review, I absolutely loved Sarina Bowen’s The Fifteenth Minute. This story had just the right amount of fun and serious that made it so I just couldn’t stop reading. If you love NA romance and haven’t picked up any of Sarina Bowen’s books, do yourself and favour and read one. You won’t regret it.