Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Review: The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Series: The Naturals #1
Pages: 308
Received: Received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley

Release Date: November 5, 2013
Buy From Chapters.ca / Buy From BookDepository.com

Goodreads Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.

What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides—especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own. Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.

Soon, it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

My Review:

I was quite taken with this book, it took me some time to really get into the story and everything that was happening but once things started coming together the book truly got interesting. I felt this book was similar to an episode of Criminal Minds with teenagers. This book had a great supernatural type element to it, but Jennifer Lynn Barnes also adds in the creepy aspect with chapters titled YOU that seem to be the person that is on a killing spree.

To be honest, when I first started reading this book I really didn't think I would enjoy it all that much, but as I saw Cassie learn more about her ability and really grow up a little more I began to like her as a character. The characters in the book all have their own special ability that when they work as a team, help them be able to track down serial killers. It is interesting to see how Cassie trains, she learns to track habits of people and work backwards to learn the behaviour of a person.

What really kept me interesting, was the underlying mystery of the murder of Cassie's mother. Cassie believes that by joining the program she will be able to find her mother's murderer, I felt that it added a great backstory to Cassie's life and why she would jump at the chance to join such a special program.

If you are a fan of mystery/thrillers, or CRIMINAL MINDS, this book would be a great one to pick up. I'm interested to see what is next for these characters after everything that went down in this book. It was a great start to a series, that I believe will become darker as the books continue on. 

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