Review: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
My rating: 2 of 5 genies
Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy, Mystery, Romance, Paranormal
Published: March 16, 2010
Pages: 329
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Library Loan
Format: Hardcover
Purchase At: TheBookDepository.com or Amazon.com

Goodreads Summary

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes that the dead leave behind in the world... and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find the dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer... and becoming his prey herself.

My Thoughts

So the way I see it, this book is far too predictable to read. Before going further than where I stopped I am sure that the killer will be caught and Jay and Violet will realize their undying wuv for each other. It really is a beautiful thing! gag And maybe I'm a little too cynical, but watching Violet struggle with her feelings was beyond lame.

Like really? He's smoking, go for it! (Not to say girls should attack good looking men everywhere, that there would be cause for war. There are not enough fine ones to go around, end of story.) Life is hard enough as it is and if an available (albeit super-protective) guy you've known all your life suddenly gets very good looking over the summer, why not make things easier on yourself?

Violet didn't.

She agonized over her feelings like she was some child when really the girl was wise enough to know certain things, such as what guys liked and how to kiss, but not how to go about telling the guy you like that you like him? (Tongue twister that one is!) So unrealistic.

Derting made it hard to believe and I hated the parts with the serial killer. His chapters served no purpose other than to make the reader (or at least me) extremely uncomfortable. Let's just say that I've survived something like that, thank God, and I did not appreciate having to read his perspective. It was so chilling and certainly far from being intriguing, I had to put the book down at least twice just to remind myself that it was fictional and that the guy was too badly written to be real.

He was slime and I get it, I totally get that Derting was going for that. She wanted the person reading to root for Violet, but really I was just confused. I disliked Violet and hated the serial killer, there was no one to choose from. Except maybe Jay and that is a position no person deserves to be stuck in. Why is the only choice left the over-protective/slightly demeaning boyfriend? Nay!

I choose the cat.

The two genies are for the beginning because at least that was decent. Needless to say, I will not be continuing with this series. Funny thing is my library doesn't carry any book after the first. And here I thought my librarians really didn't know any better. Who would have thunk? Gee, I wonder why.

2 genies. The review says it all, reading this book was not a happy experience.