I Hunt Killers

Publisher: Hachette (Little, Brown)
Pages: 359
Publication Date: April 3, 2012
Type: Hardcover, bought

What if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad?

Jasper (Jazz) Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.

But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could--from the criminal's point of view.

And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod.

In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret--could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

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There are a lot of reasons to love this book.

You can love it because it's unabashedly gory, but not in a senseless manner.  It's not gore simply for the sake of gore.  It's just honest detail, a refusal to censor the horror of a serial killer's deeds.

You can love it because it presents a compelling mystery, one that was terrifying, unpredictable, and completely satisfying.  

You can love it because it's a brilliant mixture of dark and witty.  The morbid humor is a fascinating counterbalance to the brutality pervading this novel.  It switched so easily from light banter to gruesome murder and heavy contemplation, without seeming corny or forced.  Rather, the abrupt switch from light to darkness made the darkness all the more terrifying.

You can love it because the characters are complex and lovable and remarkably flawed, in that way only real people are.

Or if you're feeling shallow and easily distractable, you can love it because it's got the coolest fucking cover art in existence.

But the reason I loved this novel as much as I did was the painfully realistic portrayal of Jazz's character.  Jazz is one of the most disturbed, imperfect protagonists you could possibly find, and I felt that Barry Lyga absolutely nailed him.  Everything. Every aspect of his thoughts, his words, his actions.  If there was a boy who'd been raised by the most horrible serial killer the world had ever seen, this is precisely how he would be.

Throughout the novel, Jazz faces the dilemma of whether or not he is doomed to follow in his father's footsteps.  Whether or not him becoming a murder is a possibility or inevitability.  Whether or not he is a sociopath. Whether or not he can care.

And I can tell you from experience that Barry Lyga captured those feelings perfectly.

The following is rather personal, but it's the reason I was so very impressed by Mr. Lyga's skill in the creation of Jazz's character.  If you don't wish to read this, you can skip to the bottom.

The thing is that I have been called a sociopath several times.  At a relatively young age.  By parents.  And when a ten- or eleven-year-old is called a sociopath, it makes them seriously consider the possibility.  What if they're right? What if I am a sociopath?  What if the way I act, the way I feel, is just a show?

Do I care about others, or do I simply think I do because that's what's expected of me?

Do I care, period?

Do sociopaths worry about being sociopaths?

And this struggle is written so perfectly in the character of Jazz that I was honestly stunned.  It gave him a new depth, and a remarkable relatability, even to those who haven't been confronted with this exact question.  At the heart of this is the more general dilemma of Will I follow in my parent's footsteps?  Am I my own person, or what they made me? 

That gave the novel an unexpected thoughtfulness and poignancy to accompany the gory murder.  

Would I recommend this? Yes. Yes. Yes.  I would recommend this a million times over.  Will everyone be able to read this? No.  Definitely not.  This is not a novel for the faint of heart; it is very, very graphic, and if you can't handle that, this will not be the novel for you.

But if you can, I suspect you will love every last gruesome detail.  

5 stars.

Every Other Day

Publisher: Egmont
Pages: 329
Publication Date: December 27, 2011
Type: Paperback, won

Every other day, Kali D'Angelo is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She goes to public high school. She attends pep rallies. She's human.

And then every day in between . . .She's something else entirely.

Though she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it environmental terrorism.

When Kali notices a mark on the lower back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours to save her and, unfortunately, she'll have to do it as a human. With the help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might not survive. . .and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in the process.

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I didn't expect to like this so much.

See, paranormals and I, we have a pretty shaky relationship.  Sometimes, there's this absolutely fantastic idea, and the book . . . is just as fantastic as the concept.  And sometimes, there's an equally fantastic idea, but then I start reading, and my mood sinks further with every page.  It's the same as all the rest.  Weak protagonist.  Frightful love interest.  Insta-love that dominates any hints of an actual plot.

I hadn't the faintest which one EVERY OTHER DAY would end up being.  Happily, it was the former.

I think the idea is brilliant.  I think it was executed brilliantly.  This world where paranormal creatures have been known to exist since Darwin--where he, in fact, was the first to discover them--was completely enchanting.  Barnes gave us enough detail to get a good idea of this dark, magical, but strangely familiar world without dumping pages worth of flat world-building on the reader's head.  I was fascinated by this setting, by the mix of the bizarre and what we accept as normal--this place where hellhounds were on the endangered species list and kids fretted about the mean girls at high school.

I also think the plotting was done wonderfully.  There wasn't one dull moment; I was fully engrossed in this novel from the beginning to the end.  Also, Barnes pulled off something many authors struggle with: completing a full story arc within one novel while still leaving it open to the possibility of more.  This could operate as a stand-alone, but it could also lead into a series.  I really, really love that; cliff-hangers may provide a motivation to read the next novel, but they lack that sense of closure that many readers--myself included--seek.

But far and away, the best aspect of this novel was the characters.  Barnes handled a large, varied cast and managed to give each character their own unique personality, their own way of speaking, thinking, and doing. I loved that she tackled two major stereotypes, the "slut" and the "cheerleader," and made them into something much, much more.  The characters all had a wonderful dynamic--they played off of one another in the best of ways.

And there's our protagonist.  Our awesome, awesome protagonist.  Kali was fantastic, and I absolutely adored her.  She was reserved at times, snarky at others, and always, always strong.  I don't just mean strong in a physical way.  Sure, she was a fearsome demon-slayer every other day.  Sure, she kicked some major ass.  But she also had that mental fortitude that I think typifies a truly "strong" protagonist.  One doesn't have to be physically capable to be strong; there's a very large mental and emotional aspect to that quality.  Kali happened to have all three.

“Sometimes, there aren't any good choices. Sometimes, making the right one is hard... It's funny, but when you think about it, we're all broken. That's what life does. It knocks you down and breaks you and you either get back up again, or you don't. You either do things on your terms, or you don't. You let the bad things win, or you don't."

"You either let it break you, or you don't.” 

However, there was one thing I wasn't too fond of: the stereotypical high school.  Barnes did some wondrous character development with Skylar and Bethany, the "slut" and the "cheerleader," as I mentioned before, but the rest of their high school . . . was not so fortunate.  There were still the awkward nerds, the bitchy cheerleaders, the segregated lunch room.  Perhaps it's really like this at some schools, but I've yet to find one.  It just added a cheesy, well-worn atmosphere to an otherwise fresh, exciting novel.

Also . . . the romance.  Otherwise known as "the insta-love."  It wasn't nearly so bad as it could've been.  This could've been one of those novels where the protagonist meets the love interest, gets googly-eyes, and refuses to see or care about anything else for the rest of the novel.  That was not the case.  The romance is essentially nonexistent for the first few hundred pages; the plot always takes precedence.  But Kali's ~connection~ with this creature she'd known for only a few days was simply not believable, supernatural or no.

Overall, though, this was a very enjoyable book.  I'd highly recommend it to any fans of the paranormal, and if it's the beginning of a series, I will certainly be reading the next installments.

4 stars.

The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy

Publisher: Penguin (Razorbill)
Pages: 279
Publication Date: August 21, 2012
Type: ARC, for blog tour

When Lorelei's old school mysteriously burns down, a new one appears practically overnight: Splendid Academy. Rock-climbing walls on the playground and golden bowls of candy on every desk? Gourmet meals in the cafeteria, served by waiters? Optional homework and two recess periods a day? It's ever kids's dream. 

But Lorelei and her new friend Andrew are pretty sure it's too good to be true. Together they uncover the sinister mystery, one with their teacher, the beautiful Ms. Morrigan, at the very center. 

Then Andrew disappears. Lorelei has to save him, even if that means facing a past she'd like to forget – and taking on a teacher who's a real witch. 

What Lorelei and Andrew discover chills their bones – and might even pick them clean! 



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This book helped remind me why I still adore middlegrade.


It managed to be cute, sweet, genuinely emotional, and creepy, sometimes all within the span of a few pages.  In a YA novel, that'd be almost bizarre; but in here? Not in the slightest.  Children have such a fantastic array of emotions, and are so very capricious.  They can switch from delighted to horrified to curious within the span of minutes.  And they have this honest, black and white view of the world that has always fascinated me more than anything.  


At first, this tripped me up.  While some of the characters were wonderful and real and intensely likable--Lorelei, Andrew, even Brian, despite his jerkiness--some of them seemed to be flatly evil, with no redeeming traits to speak of.  But then I remembered something, something I suppose I'd forgotten in the many months between my last middlegrade read.  I remembered that simply because Lorelei perceived these people as purely awful did not mean they were, in actuality, evil incarnate; it was simply how she saw them.  Lorelei is not a little kid, but even at her age, children have this tendency to make things out in such a way that the world is easier to grasp.  There are blacks and whites, rights and wrongs, but there are no shades of gray.


I'd accepted this, so it came as a very, very pleasant surprise when Nikki Loftin showed me that Lorelei could see the shades of gray, at least a bit.


Even those characters that should be completely despicable, the ones you know you're supposed to hate, root against, hope for their demise, etc., were not the evil, mustache-twirling (hair-twirling, since they're female?) villains that one might find in a middlegrade book for the younger ages.  They were terrible, yes, and I was rooting for Lorelei to defeat them, yes, but there were these small moments, these small emotions, that made them so very real, despite the fantastic circumstances.


I adored that.  I adored every last character in here, but most of all, I adored Lorelei.  She was sweet and troubled and determined and far, far better than most MCs you'll find in YA today.  They could learn a thing or to from this girl, this eleven-year-old who loves her family and loves her friend and will do anything to save the people around her, no matter how they may act towards her.  

That's not the only thing I was fond of. I liked the writing, simple and smooth; I liked the plot, with its fast, even pacing that rushed me through this in less than a day; I liked the whole concept, completely creepy and completely original.  Granted, I guessed the main plot within the first 30 pages, but I do not fall within this book's intended audience.  I suspect that for the average 7-12 year old, the plot will be a wonderful mystery.

More than all this, though, the characters made the story.  Nikki Loftin has a real talent for creating characters that you can't help but love, and that, that guarantees I will read anything she writes, no matter the genre.

4.5 stars, but I loved the characters enough that it's being rounded to 5.