Early Review – Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (4.5/5 stars)
Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Size: 336 pages
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Release Date: December 27, 2011
ISBN: 978-1606841693
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: eGalley through NetGalley.com
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
I got an eGalley of this book from NetGalley(dot)com. The premise sounded very interesting and I was hoping that this would an awesome YA urban fantasy instead of some paranormal love triangle…guess what?! It was an awesome book of the kick-butt urban fantasy variety.
Every other day Kali is human, every other day she is something…else. Kali doesn’t know why but every other day she turns into something not human, something that yearns to hunt the evil creatures that stalk the darkness, something that feels no pain, can move fast, and whose blood is poison to any other paranormal creatures. When Kali sees that a girl at school, Bethany, has a death mark on her back Kali takes the mark onto herself to save Bethany. The only big problem with this is that today Kali is human, so she has over twelve hours she has to fight this internal evil before she changes back to being superhuman. Kali ends up in conflict with the people who gave Bethany the mark and ends up finding out the truth about her own origins.
I really enjoyed this book. This is one of those YA books that focues more on butt-kicking and mystery than high-school drama. I really enjoyed the parts of the book were Kali kicked some serious hellhound booty, but just as enjoyable were the sections where Kali dealt with being human. I mean how weird is it that Kali is forced to deal with a cycle of being invincible and then being extremely vulnerable; this is a creative idea and it is executed beautifully in this book.
The story is told solely from Kali’s point of view. I enjoyed Kali, she is a tough no-nonsense girl, but she has some vunerability too. I love how she learns to accept some help from her friends and learns the value of their friendship throughout the story. I also found Kali’s relationship with her dad intriguing as the story progresses you realize there is a lot going on with her father too, in his own way he’s been trying to do the best he can for Kali.
The story takes place in an interesting world where paranormals, demons, and others have lived among the human race for some time and have even been put on endangered species lists for protection. This adds an interesting elements to Kali’s hunting expeditions, because even though she is acting the part of the hero and saving humans, her actions are illegal.
There are enough plot twists and turns to make your head spin, I enjoyed them all. You keep thinking that you have kind of figured out what’s going on and then, BAM, something else crazy is revealed. There is a lot of mystery in this book as well as some crazy genetic engineering stuff going on.
The book wraps up nicely but there are some things left unresolved. I haven’t been able to find anything about this book being the first in a series but I hope it is because I loved it. This was just a super fun book.
Overall I absolutely loved this book. The premise is creative, Kali is an awesome lead and her friends are awesome too. The plot is incredibly engaging, hard to predict, and lots of fun. The world is an interesting one where paranormal creatures have been around for some time and are even considered endangered in certain cases; it’s a fascinating world. The writing flowed nicely and was easy and fun to read. There isn’t a ton of romance in this book (a little but not a ton), it is more of the urban fantasy variety and has some absolutely kick-butt action scenes throughout. Loved it! Can’t wait to see if there is another book in this series.
Now I just might have to go and check out her Raised by Wolves series as well. I would recommend this for fans of YA urban fantasy; if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Horror and Urban Fantasy Challenge
– 100+ Reading Challenge
– E-book Reading Challenge
– Zombies! Reading Challenge
