The Body Finder - Kimberly Derting

The Body Finder is the debut novel by Kimberly Derting. It was published on 11th November 2010 in the UK by Headline and it is 336 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy for review.

Plot
Violet Ambrose has been different from other girls since she was a child. When she was 8 years old, she discovered that she has the ability to sense the dead, whether it be in the form of taste, sound or smell. Violet can’t sense everyone that is dead though, only people or animals that have had their lives taken from them and she can also gets the same kind of sense from murderers.

After her first experience with a dead body, Violet could only really sense small animals that had been the prey of something else but her senses are getting stronger. As young girls begin to turn up dead in Violet’s town, she can’t help but have heightened senses, leading her to find more and more bodies. A murderer is on the loose and Violet may be the only one that can help the police. She knows that she has to use her gift for good but best friend Jay has a thing or two to say about it.

Jay is one of the very few people that know about Violet’s gift but her newfound romantic feelings towards him leave her feeling alone and unable to turn to him for help. Trying to catch a killer could lose Violet not only her best friend but her life.

What I thought
The Body Finder is so different from anything else around at the minute and it was refreshing to not read about supernatural beings like vampires and werewolves (although I do still love them). Even though I loved the sound of the plot before reading the book, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like the whole crime/ murder mystery side to it. Because of this book, I would now happily give anything along these lines a go now and give them more of a chance to begin with.

The story was fast paced from the start and that never stopped. There was always something happening, whether it be from Violet’s POV or from the killers’. I sometimes get a little bored with stories from multiple POV’s but not this time. I really liked the fact that we get to see into the mind of the murderer and what having this did to the story. Whenever the POV changed, the story went into a much deeper and creepier place which really made me skin crawl (in the best way possible) at times. Where some YA books are extremely predictable, this one wasn’t at all and there were plenty of twists to keep me entertained and guessing throughout.

Kimberly Derting gave Violet such a hard ability to deal with alongside wanting to be a normal teenager and I felt that this gave her character a lot of depth. High School has to be hard enough without having the added pressure of helping the police with a massive investigation and young girls going missing left, right and centre. Violet was extremely brave, making the decision to help the police and do something good. I guess most girls in her position would have run a mile and stayed well away so I applaud her for doing what she did. Violet was also really likable and real. I loved how she had a massive fight with her unruly and frizzy curls every morning and I loved how she felt about Jay but was too scared to say anything. There were so many parts of her character that I could relate to which made me want to give her a big hug at many different times.

I really enjoyed getting to learn about Violet and Jay’s friendship and some of the things that they had been through together over so many years. Their friendship was something that I would have loved to have had for myself. I did have a couple of problems with the way that Jay reacted at times but maybe I can just put that to guys being stupid/ frustration/ hormones or something. There were also times where I just wanted to slap the both of them and tell them to open their eyes a little bit.

I really, really hate to say it but I didn’t love Jay. It wasn’t that he isn’t a fantastic and lovely character, because he was, he just wasn’t one of my book crushes. A lot of people had really hyped him up to me and maybe this was part of the problem. Most of what I didn’t like was the fact that he was so nice! I know how strange that sounds but I guess I’m just more into guys with a bit of bad in them. Even though I didn’t love him in a crazy crush kind of way, I did really like his character. He was very sweet and loyal when it came to Violet, truly being an amazing best friend. I guess it was obvious what was going to happen in the romance department but I didn’t mind that at all. I would have been extremely upset if it hadn’t have happened.

The Body Finder is a fantastic debut and I can’t wait to find out what happens next in the sequel, Desires of the Dead, due for release in March 2011.