ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for a fair an honest review.

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Ephraim Scott is horrified when he comes home from school and finds his mother unconscious at the kitchen table, clutching a bottle of pills. The reason for her suicide attempt is even more disturbing: she thought she’d identified Ephraim’s body at the hospital that day.

Among his dead double’s belongings, Ephraim finds a strange coin—a coin that grants wishes when he flips it. With a flick of his thumb, he can turn his alcoholic mother into a model parent and catch the eye of the girl he’s liked since second grade. But the coin doesn’t always change things for the better. And a bad flip can destroy other people’s lives as easily as it rebuilds his own.

The coin could give Ephraim everything he’s ever wanted—if he learns to control its power before his luck runs out. -Goodreads

Review: As soon as I read the blurb for Fair Coin I knew it was a book I would enjoy. The concept by itself is pretty cool– flip a coin, change your life. It doesn’t turn out to be quite that simple (surprise, surprise), but Fair Coin definitely kept me guessing throughout the entire book.

Fair Coin offers a really interesting take on exploring what could be, within your own life and ends up taking a bit of scientific what if turn later on that will absolutely get your brain going on the possibilities within your own life. While the main character wasn’t exactly someone I have a lot in common with, I still found him easy to root for and someone I could imagine hanging out with which is what usually determines if a book is one I’ll stick with until the end.

My only real issue with the book was that I had trouble getting attached to any of the secondary characters. I never really got to the point where I felt like I knew who they were as individuals (which makes sense within the context of the book but still made it hard to get attached to the characters or to really root for anyone besides Ephraim). Honestly, I don’t even know how I would fix this while staying true to the idea of the story (sorry, you really have to read this to know what I’m talking about) but something just didn’t click for me.

While the story didn’t blow my socks off, I have to give credit here for getting me thinking which is what will make this book stick in my head for at least a few months to come. I’ve already had a couple moments since reading the book a week or so ago, where something seemingly minor has reminded me of Fair Coin. I know I’m being purposefully vague in this review but I really don’t want to give too much away as I absolutely think this is a YA title worth reading.

Buy the book @Amazon (US) @Amazon (CAN)

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Second Opinions:
@Mindful Musings
@Justin’s Book Blog
@Hooked to Books