The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Released: March 1, 2010

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pages: 327

Rating: 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 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 left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope 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.

The Body Finder is one of those books that when you really think about the story it scares you. The book itself doesn’t scare you, the characters don’t really scare you – but the idea behind the book scares you. How Kimberly came up with Violet’s ability, I don’t even want to know, it creeps me out. At the same time though, I want to know more. I want to know what happens to Violet after The Body Finder, I want there to be more to it. You are given an absolutely complete story from beginning to end, and somehow it wasn’t enough. Although Violet is just a teenage girl her gift (or nightmare?) could be so useful, so it makes me wonder if she’d keep hiding it, or would she put it to use. Which is why I suppose it’s a good thing there’s a sequel.

At the end of The Body Finder I was floored. While there were things that I wasn’t to happy with, the general idea behind the novel is something completely unique, something that I have never ever heard of before. That’s not an easy thing to do. I usually generally compare people and books like this to Stephen King. I’m not a big reader of his or a fan of his writing, but his ideas always and constantly blow my mind – and that’s how I feel about The Body Finder (minus the not liking the writing, because I did. A lot). I think that if Kimberly hadn’t written this book, and if her husband hadn’t given her the idea behind Violet’s gift it would have never been written. No one else would have ever thought of it. She portrays Violet and her fear of her ability so genuinely that it couldn’t have been anyone but her.

Having said all of that though, the one thing that bothered me about The Body Finder bothered me A LOT. I understand the term Paranormal Romance, it has all but infiltrated my bookshelves. I however, don’t like Romance Paranormal – which seems to be taking an uprising in YA literature. It’s where the Romance seemingly starts to devour the book. I loved The Body Finder and while it was nice to finally see a romance blossom that had already taken it’s roots before we were pulled into the world, there was a little too much of it for me. So much that it almost overtook the main plot of the book and instead of being a side plot firmly insisted it was just as important as the main plot and would. not. go. away. I understood half way through the book that these two people (Violet & Jay) were probably in the giant big picture, soul mates, so I really could have gone without the pages and pages of them being together and all over each other.

However, that is my only real complaint. The writing was wonderful, the plot was absolutely mind blowing and the characters were great and very dimensional. I loved the world and the feeling that Kimberly managed to transcribe in her writing, and I absolutely cannot wait forDesires of the Dead to be released. I just hope it focuses a little more on Violet and her ability then it does on her and Jay’s relationship. I definitely recommend this book to YA readers!