30 Minutes or Less: The Complete Story – Matthew Vaughn

2/5 stars

30 Minutes or Less is about a deranged maniac who has a penchant for sharp things and pizza. This man terrorizes Bella and her friends until only Bella remains. She escapes, but this psychopath won’t be denied…

This one had a few issues for me execution wise. The first part is told by Bella as she gives a statement to a detective about what happened to her that night. Bella is weirdly not affected by the event, but then randomly bursts into tears before going back to being unaffected. The detective is super suspicious, but then is apparently a huge part of her life later. Part 2 didn’t seem to jive well with Part 1 in that I had no idea what was happening to whom at the start of it. It wasn’t really clear what was happening. Part 3 felt a little random and ended on a bit of a mystery.

Overall, this book felt disjointed. You could tell that each part had been separate at one time and were stacked together to make this complete story. I found myself wanting a little bit more to tie them all together cohesively. The pizza thing got a bit kitschy after awhile, and for a good chunk of the book, it seemed like all the action was happening off camera. Some of the scenes got to be a little repetitive as well.

I did like that there were other things going on besides the gore and whatnot, but I am really curious about the villain. I never really learned much about him, so he didn’t feel as fleshed out to me as he could’ve been. However, I’ll definitely be more careful about opening the door without looking, even if I’m expecting a delivery!