*If you have not read the first two books I suggest reading them before this review
Let’s just say that the third book in this series was nothing short of disappointing. I know I should review the first two books first, but I cannot bring myself to hold this review back any longer. I guess reading the first two and liking them so much, I was expecting a lot more from Mrs. Kimberly Derting, and unfortunately this book did fall short of my expectations.
The story introduces our protagonist, Violet Ambrose, when she is still in high school. She is still happily with her boyfriend of a few months Jay Heaton. Now can I stop for a minute and say SAH-WOON! Jay is such a good male lead for this novel and I enjoyed him immensely in the first two books. Now back to the summary, Violet has now become part of an organization that has use for her shall we say…special skills. You see, Violet can find the dead. That’s right, our protagonist basically finds the bodies of people who have been murdered; now what makes this even more interesting is that every dead body leaves what she calls an “imprint” on her. These imprints can be anything from tasting something sweet to hearing bells chime when she is near a body. After that, she cannot get the imprint out of her head until the body is laid to rest. However, she can always remember the imprints. But the bodies aren’t the only things that have imprints…their killers carry the same imprints as well. This makes her very useful for an organization lead by the mysterious Sara Priest. But Sara isn’t all that comes with this, she also makes some friends that have interesting abilities as well, especially Rafe who is nothing if not mysterious, guarded, and a teeny bit scary. While they are trying to catch a killer, the killer ends up getting infatuated with Violet. Will she be his next victim, or will she catch him before he can make her one? That is basically the premise of this book.
Now I had many problems with this book starting with the fact that Jay was barely in it. That’s right, the protagonist’s hot boyfriend was barely in the book for more than a few pages at a time. I am not saying that I expect Jay to be everywhere with Violet because that would be creepy and obsessive, but I do wish that the author had written him in more, and given him a more significant part. Jay and Violet’s relationship was so cute and interesting in the first two books, and so the fact he that he wasn’t in this one as much really broke my heart and made the book less enjoyable. If you read the first two and loved Jay, be prepared for some disappointment.
Problem number two was the slight love triangle that was introduced. I am completely FED UP with love triangles in Young Adult fiction and just in general. Love triangles are overrated and overused and they really don’t add that much to the plot other than making me get frustrated with the protagonist for being promiscuous with two boys/girls. If you haven’t guessed it already, the love triangle occurs between Rafe, Violet, and Jay. I think the reason that this frustrated me the most was that in books one and two of the series, Violet could not get over how much she loved Jay and blah blah blah. But then she starts thinking about another boy, right after all her and Jay have been through. Really? REALLY? This book had enough going on without putting a love triangle into the equation. Why oh why couldn’t Mrs. Derting break the trend of love triangles in YA fiction? I swear in every book that I read, there is some sort of love triangle now a days. Most frequently they do it in the second book, so when Mrs. Derting didn’t I had some hope. But now? I’m crushed. Love triangle was NOT NECESSARY.
Okay now that that was established, lets move onto the plot. The plot was good in theory, however it was very repetitive of what happened in the first two books. I feel like the author just keeps putting Violet with different killers and recreating the climax in a different setting. It does get old after a while. Although there was the added element of Sara Priest and all her new friends, the plot was pretty similar to the first two. I had hoped for something different than just Violet being threatened. Maybe one of her friends? Maybe Jay? Just not Violet in the same old story.
Now onto the last most annoying thing about this novel: Violet herself. In the first two books I really loved Violet. She was smart, pretty, capable, and a strong person in general. She never felt sorry for herself or complained about her situation. Overall, she was just a sweetheart in general. Was she painfully oblivious at times? Yes, but in an endearing way. In this book she basically lost all innocence. She was feisty and sometimes even verged on rude, and let me tell you that does not work for her. At all. I felt like she was being stupid and attention seeking the whole novel, and she was also painfully indecisive! This might just be me, but that’s how I felt she acted a lot of the time. The fact that the author was able to take a character I adored and make me hate her by the end of this book, is a bit sad. But it’s the truth.
The redeeming quality of this book: the ending. We were left on a massive cliff hanger, which was a bit surprising as I thought this would be the last book in the series. However, I would be an idiot to think that after reading the ending. I liked how the author ended it like that as opposed to giving it another generic ending to go with it’s generic plot line.
This is strictly my opinion of the book. I believe that it was well written and all, but it was just a disappointment. I didn’t feel that “I never want it to end” feeling that I got with the first two books. In fact I was looking foreword to the ending a lot. If you liked this book, than good for you! I don’t mean to offend anyone with this review and I hope that that is understood. If you have a book you’ve been eyeing and you want me to review it, COMMENT THIS!
Young Adult Book Muncher 