Monday, November 18, 2013

Review: The Naturals

The Naturals
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Published November 5th 2013 
by Disney-Hyperion
ARC from Netgalley
Goodreads |  Amazon | Barnes & Noble | TBD
Summary from Goodreads:
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.

Thoughts:
The Naturals reminded me a lot of another YA mystery thriller; Impostor which also featured so-called gifted teens working with the authority to catch serial killers. And just like that book, I find it a little hard to believe that these teens have what it takes to become really efficient agents. Why you might ask? Well...they spend too much time ogling each other and wondering what that other person thinks of them instead of solving the case on hand. I mean...really!




This could have been a much enjoyable mystery if the annoying love triangle are kept at a minimum and instead more clues are given out regarding the so-called killers. But that ending certainly caught me by surprise and it saved the book from being an over the top mushy YA romance pretending to be a mystery. Is there going to be a next book? I'm more interested about the killer than about Cassie and her male counterparts.


Verdict:


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