Review – The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (4.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Thiller/Mystery
Size: 320 pages
Publisher: Miramax
Release Date: November 5, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-142316823
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone?
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
I really loved Barnes’ book Every Other Day, but wasn’t as impressed with her Raised by Wolves series. So I was a little unsure what to expect from this book. It ended up being absolutely fantastic, I loved this book and devoured it in one sitting.
This story is about a girl named Cassie who is a natural at profiling people, Cassie’s mother is dead and her father is overseas, so she is biding her time living with her extended family and working in a diner. Then the FBI approaches her about a job, they want her to enroll in a school where they train people with natural abilities like hers. The Naturals are supposed to work on cold cases in the FBI. However things get out of hand when a serial killer ends up on the loose in their town.
This was a very fun read and completely engrossing. I loved all the characters and their weird Natural abilities. In the house Cassie moves to there is a another Profiler (Dean), a guy who is a natural at reading Emotions (Michael), a girl who is a pathological liar and can always tell if another person is lying (Lia), and a girl who can pick patterns out of anything (Sloane).
Cassie has a chip on her shoulder because her mother was brutally murdered years ago, she is hoping that training to be a Natural for the FBI will allow her to find clues about her mother. However, the agents training these kids are getting more and more stressed as more and more bodies are found in the area. ALl of this can only add up to one thing, a serial killer is loose in their town.
I read this book pretty much in one sitting. It was incredibly well done and I really enjoyed it a lot. Very different from most books I read; this one was mostly a thriller/mystery. The book is very fast-paced and extremely engaging. It’s just one of those books that is super fun to read.
There are a lot of twists and turns in the story. I enjoyed the different personalities too. There is a bit of a love triangle between Cassie, Dean, and Michael which I didn’t enjoy all that much…but pretty typical for YA books…so it didn’t bother me too much.
Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was a fun read that was fast-paced and engaging. It’s mostly mystery/thriller and there are some gruesome scenes throughout. The characters were all interesting. The dialogue throughout was witty and funny. I would recommend this to fans of young adult books and to fans of mystery thrillers.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
– 100 Books in a Year Reading Challenge
