Title: The Naturals
Series: The Naturals (Book 1)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Summary: It's basically a YA version of Criminal Minds, in which a smart girl named Cassie joins the FBI to help catch serial killers
Rating: 9/10 stars
Review: I'll be honest, I think I know everything. I've read countless novels, I watch Criminal Minds religiously, so when I know how bad guys are caught on that show and I know every trope in fiction, it's rather hard to take me by surprise. Which is why I have to give The Naturals such a high rating. I had figured out who the killer was from their first appearance and for the first time in as far as I can remember, I was wrong about a novels' plot twist. While I was reading The Naturals, I saw myself giving it a 6 or 7 starred rating because I thought it was predictable. However, by the end of the novel, I found myself overlooking the pointless love triangle and one dimensional characters because I enjoyed the last third of the novel so much. The plot was easy to follow, moved fairly quickly (I finished this in just a few days), and the story is a lot of fun. There aren't many young adult novels based around criminal profiling so it's refreshing to read something new and unique. The Naturals does have its problems though. The love triangle, for one, is not needed at all. Michael and Cassie have chemistry as friends but whenever things get romantic it's awkward and I feel like they can't relate to each other very well and that this should just remain a friendship. The romance feels thrown in for cheap tension. Dean and Cassie make a lot more sense together romantically and I hope that by the end of the next book, the love triangle has been squashed and we can stop dedicating pages to it when that page time could be given to developing the characters. I feel like too often characters start to blur together, Lia and Sloane, Briggs and Agent Whatsherface. The characters don't feel distinct enough and it makes it hard to get attached to any of them, to the point where someone was on the floor bleeding to death and I was thinking "what am I going to eat for lunch?" There are still at least three more novels in this series and maybe now that we've gotten the first one out of the way, characters can have room to stretch their legs out a bit (and show off their abilities more).
The Naturals is a little rocky in a few places but manages to stick the landing and make the reader eager for book two, Killer Instinct. This is a solid start to what's sure to be a fun series.
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