Review: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder - Kimberly Derting
Release Date - March 16th 2010
Publisher - Harper Teen
Age Group - Young Adult
Pages - 336
Overall - 4.5/5

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

I think I'm on a roll with picking good books to read. There were so many good things about this book, and hardly any bad things. I'm just going to start with the one thing I didn't entirely like, because I want to get it out of the way. That would be that the story progressed slow, and then once it got to the good action parts there wasn't very much of it. But to be completely honest, the fact that this book was able to keep me in the dark for once, made it absolutely amazing. I didn't see what was going to happen until it did which made me sit pretty much on the edge of my seat the entire time.

I also loved the relationships in this book. Violet and Jay made me so happy I can't even begin to tell you. I think I liked it so much because it was real. Having a guy best friend and falling for him is something that happens to girls on a daily basis. So being able to see that in a story and for it to go the way it did was really good. I appreciate having someone write a story where they don't just do what they think girls want to read, but they do what really happens to girls.

I really fell in love with Violet as a character in this story. She's the kind of girl that most normal teenagers are, except for the fact of seeing dead bodies auras, but other than that. She's pretty confident in most things that she does, she has a group of close friends that do their own thing, and has a loving family that is there for her through thick and thin. I think what makes her so special, other than her ability, is that she doesn't really give up. She's a strong girl, and when faced with adversity and hard times she sticks it through, and that is someone that most young girls should look up to.

This would be a book that I would recommend to pretty much anyone. I honestly don't think that because it has to do with murders that it is violent in any way, which is a very tasteful way of doing this book. I was extremely happy the entire time I was reading it and am super excited to go and buy the second one, because after reading the synopsis I am so anxious to see what happens. So that should be something to look for in my next In My Mailbox cause I'm not sure how long I'll be able to wait.