Title: Five Fortunes  
Author:  Barbara Venkataraman
Genre: Fiction     
Rating:  4 out of 5

When five fourteen-year-old girls get their fortunes from an arcade machine just for kicks, it turns their world upside-down and their close-knit group of friends starts to fall apart.

Misunderstandings abound as allegiances shift and outsiders start to come between them. The fortunes seem to be self-fulfilling prophecies – whether the girls believe in them or not.

Do our beliefs color our perception of the world? Do we ever see ourselves the way others see us, and why is change so hard?

This was a quick read. I liked the friendship dynamics of the group—and how those changed throughout the story. The fortunes were specific to each girl, but weren’t quite what the girls expected, which added some nice depth to the story. This was a nice young YA novel with some good lessons scattered throughout.

Barbara Venkataraman is an attorney and author. Five Fortunes is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of the author in exchange for an honest review.)

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