⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 STARS

The Thirteenth Guardian by KM Lewis is an EPIC read that will join the ranks of the BIBLIO-ARISTOCRACY!!!

I read this book really fast but in the end just wasn't sure how I felt about the story in it. It didn't make me feel anything to be honest.

This had interesting premise that hooked me. The 2 thing that I had problems with is the writing and hope that I would be able to get used to it but I really didn't. The 2nd one is the characters that seemed to be superficial like I can't feel them and at the same not that developed.

Overall, this is kind of a disappointment.

I have to admit right off the bat that this was an anxiety inducing, scary read for me personally. Apocalyptic, end of the world, death type things have a way of throwing me into an anxiety attack and make me incredibly fearful and that is exactly what this book did.

The beginning was a little strange and I was concerned where it was going, but it immediately thrust me into this end of the world situation that I got sucked into and could not stop reading. I had to know what was happening, how people were going to survive, why certain people were meant to survive – it was a crazy suspenseful read.

I really wanted to rate the book a full 5 stars, but the ending got a little too religious for me and I felt rather lost. And the ending was… well, abrupt. It just – ended.

This is clearly meant to be a cliffhanger ending and it very much achieved that. I really do want to continue reading more to see where this journey is going now that I have started the journey.

If Dystopian, end of the world suspense and thrill are your thing – this book is right up your alley. I would not recommend it for “young” readers (aka, my teenager and pre-teen who love to read) but would definitely recommend for adults. It was, overall, a great read.

The Thirteenth Guardian is Avery Fitzgerald, an Astrophysics major at Stanford who discovers that she is mysteriously bound to five strangers by an extremely rare condition that foremost medical experts cannot explain.

As she is thrust into extraordinary circumstances, the race begins against time to stay alive. All of this while Avery must come to terms with the shocking realization that the blood of an ancient queen flows through her veins and that the fate of the world now rests on her shoulders.

Great story.

I loved the idea behind this book but I just didn't enjoy it. I disliked that it was written in both second and third person point of view and everything started to get all jumbled. The book was slow until the last 30 pages but the ending was good. The characters fell a little flat and weren't very relateable to me as well.

This is the first book in a trilogy, that is philosophical and intriguing! Overall it was an enjoyable read, but I felt like it was trying to do too much too quickly. There are a lot of characters and so it was overwhelming at times.

While this book offered a very unique spin on an apocalyptic event, it was difficult to finish. Usually I really enjoy multiple POVs, but with this novel it was hard to really become empathetic or to relate with the characters. I believe that’s the whole point of writing a book that is focusing on the destruction of humanity, we need to feel a character’s fear. I just couldn’t get that with the amount of main characters used. I wanted to read this book because the synopsis made this novel sound fast-paced and interesting. I almost had the feeling that it was going to be somewhat of a “scavenger hunt” feel, with clues needing to be found in order to save the world from utter destruction. Just the the synopsis mentions Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, which I would’ve thought would have been mentioned in the novel as a source of clues and what not. Synopsis didn’t fit the novel well and was somewhat misleading. Overall, the premise was so interesting and unique that it caught my attention, but I think the author spread themselves too thin with creating so many main characters AND having a complex plot.

Just a side-note, on some sites this book is marketed as YA (which I know can be seen as teens to early 30s)- I do not see a person younger than 20 picking this novel up because it gets confusing and it is super slow.

Starting with page one, I was completely immersed in the story. I went through all the feels with this one. I was in turn enthralled, mesmerized, horrified, devastated, and by the end hopeful.

The author did an amazing job of building a credible story from the end-of-times. I’ve heard readers say books like this aren’t believable. What is fiction but the suspension of believe while you enjoy the story? Although I must admit many times throughout the book, I was reduced to tears because the characters and situation seemed so real.

I knew going in this was a trilogy. I fully expected to book to end on a cliffhanger. What a ride the author took us on to get to the end of book one, I can’t wait to start book two!

I recommend The Thirteenth Guardian to lovers of general fiction, apocalyptic thrillers, sci-fi, speculative fiction, book clubs, and more.

When I got round to reading this, I was pretty hooked.
The story is interesting, original and unexpected - rooted in theology and history.
Engages well with real biblical history.
Ended a little unexpectedly but I guess that's because of its draft nature(?) and perhaps as a set up for sequels(?)/
Really enjoyed reading and learnt a lot about physics along the way because of the astronomy elements!

this book was mindblowing.

i’m catholic, and even though my family isn’t super religious, i was sent to sunday school as a child to learn about the ten commandments and stories in the bible, such as moses leading the israelites out of egypt, and my presonal favorite – noah sailing away in an ark with his family and a bunch of animals when it rained for forty days and forty nights.

these stories are etched deep into my brain and this book somehow linked them up together and gave them a deeper meaning. it was like having severe short sightedness all your life and suddenly getting glasses which gave you clear, but wonky vision. the author’s an incredible storyteller – he takes timeless tales like these and turns them into a whole new kind of thing with his imagination. and it’s truly amazing that he planned it all out flawlessly. i will never look at these bible stories the same way again.

i also liked how the main characters all came from different parts of the world. there’s one from japan, another originally from croatia, two americans, and two of puerto rican descent. the first few chapters in this book are about their lives in separate cities when apocalyptic events started happening, and i enjoyed reading about their lives in different parts of the world.

sadly, i couldn’t really relate to any of the main characters. perhaps it’s because they’re much older than me? or maybe they’re just way too boring. avery is often referred to as a “humorous” young woman, but i don’t find her hilarious at all, and sometimes her cheeriness seems a bit forced and fake. it’s hard to stay positive when the world is falling apart around you, but still.

moreover, although the six main characters are from all over the world, i can’t help but notice that they’re all somehow american – either full american, half american or having worked in america at some point in their lives. and i don’t know, it just feels a bit weird that the only six people who survive the apocalypse are all kind of american. it’d be so much better if the final six were more diverse!

we remember religion. we remember airplanes can fly; electricity, the internet, and computers. we remember the united states’ declaration of independence. the olympics. the evils of the holocaust and slavery. we remember mother teresa, nelson mandela. we have the rich history of our old world in our minds.

to sum up my thoughts, i found the world building and storytelling very impressive, but was disappointed by how bland and lacking in diversity the main characters are. i’m looking forward to seeing the survivors rebuild the world in the next two books in the trilogy 😀

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to like The Thirteenth Guardian but I just couldn't get into it. I would rather watch all the Da Vinci movies ever made than re-read this. If I'm being honest, I was really disappointed with this because the synopsis sounded amazing and I was intrigued. Yet, when I dove into this book I was instantly bored and constantly getting distracted by every little thing outside of the book.

I don't really want to dive into what characters you meet in this book because nothing really happens to them or for them. I feel like this whole story followed everyone else besides the main characters which was very confusing to my tired brain. Then after meeting everyone, I was just kind of done with the book.

In the end, the ending (lol) was sort of it's saving grace. It was a lot more interesting than 90% of this book.

The Thirteenth Guardian is the first book in the young adult trilogy by the same name by author K.M. Lewis. The Thirteenth Guardian is like the DaVinci Code mashed with a re occurrence of the plagues of Egypt. It is a whirlwind adventure from start to finish. I really got swept up in this book, and though there was a bit much going on at times, it was a really well done novel, and it has left me excited to continue on in the trilogy. I really need to see what is going to happen next! Be warned though, this series is about the apocalypse. There are a series of natural disasters that threaten to destroy earth, so be forewarned about that going into the series.

In The Thirteenth Guardian, we meet a group of six strangers that find themselves inexplicably bound together. The first of the strangers that we meet is Avery, but the book is told from all of their perspectives, switching off between chapters with each of our 6 perspectives. I love reading a book told in multiple perspectives, and though six might seem like too much, K.M. Lewis made it work. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite character so far. I think I will be able to pick one after I read the second book, but so far I really like the whole cast of characters. There is a bit of mary Sue (and whatever the male equivalent is to a too perfect character) but I think as the books progress, we will really do a deep dive into what makes the characters who they are. Them being so perfect didn’t really bother me while I was reading, partly because there were so many other things going on in the plot for me to focus on.

This book had some many elements that I love. There is a quest style adventure, full of secrets, secret societies and history. This is a book right up my alley and I have to say K.M. Lewis really delivered. The writing is fantastic and the plot is really intricate and interesting. At times the story may feel overwhelming because of the sheer amount going on, but just stick with it, because it all comes together, and it leaves you wanting the next book immediately. If you are a fan of secret societies throughout history and you love the adventure style of the Robert Langdon books, then the Thirteenth Guardian trilogy is going to be right up your alley. I really enjoyed this book. I can’t wait for the next one in the trilogy!

3.5/5 stars

For a post-apocalyptic but set in a history many believe could happen (Biblical), I did enjoy this book. You can tell Lewis researched the impact of various major disasters and geographical fallout, which I really enjoyed.
I felt the pacing was overall slow and for reading, this felt like an elongated first act. I didn't feel like I was reading the first book in a series, but the start of the first book in a series.
However, I am anxious to know what happens next, so I will be eagerly waiting to snap up the next in the series. Overall, I did enjoy the title, but I really wanted more action and more of a reveal. I felt like the important climax was slightly too built up to just be explained away too easily.

The Thirteenth Guardian is an apocalyptic action-packed ride from the first page. Combining symbolism and themes from Egypt, The Holy Bible, Da Vinci Code, this novel effectively combines themes of faith, and doubt into a seamlessly written package.

The Thirteenth Guardian checks a lot of boxes for me. As an apocalyptic thriller, with secret societies, nefarious villains, ancient artifacts of power and old world mysticism, there is a lot to build on and draw the reader in. It was an interesting take on human origins and extinction level events, and the apocalyptic scenes were well written.

The book is centered around a group of young heroes who seek to avert an extinction event and solve a puzzle to how to avert disaster, and what their role is. The story follows these young men and women as they are called by an ancient secret organization who has been looking for them due to their particular DNA, unique in all the world. They have known they were different- what they didn't know is that if they don't save the world, no one else can. Of course, there is another ancient secret organization trying to kill them and prevent them from saving the world. Much of this was fairly interesting. The reason I didn't review it higher was due a couple factors. Although there is a little backstory on each of the heroes, I didn't find their stories interesting- they were all perfect to a fault- ultra intelligent, super athletes, with zero flaws or quirky aspects to them. For this reason, I didn't connect with any of them, and I found as the story went along that I didn't care if any of them saved the world or not, or if any of them survived or not. When the cataclysm came, I realized that I could've inserted generic characters and it would've felt the same, which is unfortunate.

I unfortunately didn't get very far into this one. The Thirteenth Guardian sounded like my kind of book which is why I initially requested it. I mean secret societies, conspiracies, and a dystopian? That's my jam, honestly. But I expected more DaVinci Code and got more apocalypse instead. I also felt detached from the characters.

I appreciate Netgalley and the publisher for letting people 'Read Now' and I hope others enjoy it! It's just not a book for me.

I thought that this book was an okay book. I read the summary and was intrigued by it and was excited to read the book. The characters were hard to relate to based on the feeling of them being to 2-dimensional. The point of views switching made it hard to follow and it took me a long time to get into the book. Despite that, I really liked the story and I thought that the writing was really good. The plot was well developed despite it feeling like it wasn’t as good as it could have been. Overall it was a good book and I hope to read more works by KM Lewis.

The Thirteenth Guardian is the debut novel for K M Lewis. It is a little bit different from other books I normally read. I thought it was a good read. The plot was intriguing with the premise of the world ending and using the Biblical plagues of Egypt. At times, I was confused as to what was going on, but once I caught on, I did not want to put it down. I liked the characters and wanted to find out what was going to happen to them next. I could not have predicted the following scenes. Some of those scenes took me on a thrilling ride. The story was action packed, suspenseful, mysterious, and adventurous.
I am giving The Thirteenth Guardian three and a half stars. I believe many readers would enjoy this book, especially those like to read apocalyptic tales. I recommend it. I would love to see what the author comes up with in their next release.
I received this book from the publisher. This review is 100% my own honest opinion.

DNF. The synopsis sounded great and I was excited to read this book, unfortunately the execution left a lot to be desired. It was repetitive, slow, and all tell no show.