Review: The Body Finder

The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Pages: 327, paperback

ISBN: 978075537895

Publisher: Headline

Release Date: November 11th, 2010 (First published March 16th 2010)

Genre: YA / romance / mystery / paranormal

Source: library

Premise:

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 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 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.

(Taken from Goodreads)

Buy it from: The Book Depository / Amazon

So, the premise of this book is fairly cool. A girl who can feel the dead. What's not to love? I'd been eagerly awaiting the Australian release of this book for months, and was rather jealous of everyone who'd read it in the US.

To start with, the writing. It felt awkward at times. For example, "The sound was getting stronger. Not louder, but stronger." (pg 3). The redundancy makes the writing look dumb, and doesn't help convey whatever message she's trying to send across. It just looks silly. What makes it worse is that things like this litter the book, and gets really annoying. Another example, "The large mountain dwarfed the smaller ones that surrounded it." (pg 40). What else can a large mountain do when it's surrounded by smaller mountains? No need to state it like that.
In terms of writing, I feel that this book needs to be looked over by an editor a few times. The word "she" is used far too much for my liking. The start of about 80% of each sentence starts with the word "she". It got to the point where I was close to proclaiming this a DNF.
Also, there were pointless paragraphs of useless bits of information or actions that didn't add anything to the story. So much needed to be cut out.

There's a lot of telling, and hardly any showing at all. It's all "she did this, she felt that, he did something else, and as a result, she felt something." It felt weak and barely held my attention.

I'm really glad, though, that Vi's parents played a part in this book, and have several scenes where they're there for their daughter. If there's one thing I hate about YA, it's that oftentimes, the parents are absent, and the kids are left to their own devices. This was a nice change of pace, and it really helped with developing Vi's character.

Concerning Violet, she is really creepily obsessed with her best friend. Even if she does like him, it doesn't make her behavior alright. She gets mad if other girls like him, as if it's something he can control.

Even worse, I don't see what Violet sees in Jay. Jay deliberately tried to make Violet jealous, and was so sure that she liked him. Why?

"Because I did and there was just no way that you didn't feel it too." - pg 221.

Yeah, you read that right. Because he fancies her, he assumes that she would automatically feel the same. If only life were like that. And instead of being this nice guy, Jay is controlling, and doesn't allow Vi any free will. He might have been seen as romantic to some, but I was sat there wondering what Vi saw in this controlling bastard. Sure, he might be doing what he does under the pretense of Vi's safety, but at the same time, he's enforcing himself as her protector, as if she needs his big, strong manly manliness to keep her safe. No, just no.

And I couldn't help but notice that even before they became an item, Jay and Vi's relationship was a really terrible one. Jay is supposed to be her best friend, yet he ignores her and ditches her on the slightest whim. He causes her internal pain by becoming rather chummy with other girls, and he knows what he's doing the entire time! What kind of friend does that?

I'm not even sure what to say about her other friends. They tease her, anger her, are horribly bitchy to her and then expect her to laugh when they joke at her expense. Vi really needs to find new friends.

As for some of the positives about this book--fear not, there actually were things that I liked--the plot was really engaging. It was suspenseful and kept me on my toes. I wanted to know more about what was happening, and I wanted to become as immersed in this world as possible. Vi's gift--or curse?--was really well done, though there were a few issues I had with it--like, what about the bugs that were to die each time someone stepped on grass, small stuff like that--but otherwise, it was planned out perfectly.

I'll be definitely reading the sequel, and reviewing it too.

Cover Art: 3
Plot: 4
Characters: 2
Writing: 2
Level of Interest: 3

Total Rating: 3/5 stars