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 Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer.. she might become his next prey.
This is the first book I’ve ever read by Kimberly Derting and honestly it’s the only one so far. However, that isn’t the point. The point is, The Body Finder is one of the few books I have revisited. Seriously, I haven’t revisited many.
That said, the second time reading it was just as fun as the first time. It took a little longer, but I wasn’t driving cross country with my husband this time around.
Violet is a typical teenager except for a special gift. No, she doesn’t see the dead, but she does have this uncanny ability to find the corpses of the dead. More specifically, the corpses of murdered beings (be animals or people). When she finds a corpse of a teenaged girl, more girls go missing, more are found dead, and she decides to use her ability to find the killer.
Violet is a very normal girl. She isn’t a damsel in distress character, though there are a few moments that are heart racing. It’s not like she is dependant on the male lead to save her. She is stubborn and intelligent.
Her love interest, Jay, doesn’t illicit much of the fictional love drama. There is drama, but it reminds me of typical high school drama versus something we see in paranormal thriller books. He is protective, loyal, and knows about Violet’s ability.
The mystery is fairly easy to figure out, but it’s the concept and the writing that had me coming back to this book. The chapters with the killer’s point of view is reminiscient of adult mysteries and hints that future books may get darker.
The book is a quick fun read that does hint at a darkening series. I do have the rest of the books and I do plan on reading them. I just wanted to finally post my review about it. Sure, it isn’t a great review and I make the book sound basic, but there’s some kind of energy to it that had me go back to the book despite the fact that I knew what was going to happen. That in itself says something.
Casia's Corner 