The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

The Basics:
The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Book 1 in the Witch Hunter series
YA, Fantasy
Published June 2, 2015
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Kobo Goodreads 

Why I picked up this book:

It seemed to be everywhere, so I though I'd hop on the hype train early for once.

Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger

The Basics:
Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Book Three in the Finishing School series.
Steampunk, YA
Published November 4, 2014
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Kobo Goodreads

Why I picked up this book:

Gail Carriger. Love love love.

Unmarked by Kami Garcia

The Basics:
Unmarked by Kami Garcia
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Book Two in the Legion series
YA, Urban Fantasy
Published September 30, 2013
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon.ca Kobo.com

Why I picked up this book:

I enjoyed the first book, and wanted to see if the second would build on that promising start.

Blurb:

He is here . . . and he could be anyone.

Kennedy Waters lives in a world where vengeance spirits kill, ghosts keep secrets, and a demon walks among us-a demon she accidentally set free.Now Kennedy and the other Legion members-Alara, Priest, Lukas, and Jared-have to hunt him down. As they learn more about the history of the Legion and the Illuminati, Kennedy realizes that the greatest mystery of all does not belong to any secret order, but to her own family. With the clock ticking and the life of someone she loves hanging in the balance, Kennedy has to ask the question she fears most: what is it about her past that has left her Unmarked?

My thoughts:

It had been long enough since I read Unbreakable that I didn't really remember much about it until I'd sunk into Unmarked. That said, after the first chapter, I never felt lost. Unmarked did a remarkable job of catching me up very quickly without giving me large, boring infodumps.

As a story, Unbreakable succeeded at entertaining me. This book deals with the fallout of Kennedy's decisions in book one, and it is fairly significant. We also delve more into the mythology of this version of the universe, learning more about the Legion and the Illuminati, as well as Kennedy's family, and I appreciated that as it added depth where it could easily have been lacking.

That cinematic quality that I detected in Unbreakable is still very much present in Unmarked. It has enough big set pieces and very strong imagery that I can easily envision it as a show on the CW or as a blockbuster movie. There's plenty of action served up with blasts of rock salt and plenty of holy water. There's visual effects to be found in the hauntings from spirits and demon, and I suspect that it would all do very well on the screen.

It's in the smaller moments that Unbreakable doesn't fare quite so well. Kennedy is very angsty and involved in her own drama, which, to be fair is a) pretty significant drama to be dealing with, and b) true of many teenagers. Still, I wanted her to suck it up and 'move onto the next thing' (as I often suggest to my four year-old when she's getting worked up over something).

I still am not in love with the love story. Jared's insistence that he *needs* Kennedy didn't impress me as much as it should have - perhaps I'm just holding them at a distance instead of letting their moments melt me? I did appreciate how the love triangle from book one was dealt with - shockingly maturely, really, compared to all the nonsense that could have happened instead.

I found a lot of the minor characters in this book to be pretty fickle. Again, I have to acknowledge that they're all dealing with some pretty major stuff, including the death of loved ones (not a spoiler, this is how these kids came together to be the Legion in the first book). But I really wanted to run around shaking them. Perhaps it was easy to forget how young they really were after seeing them in action? I think that it would also have helped to really emphasize Andras (the demon Kennedy released) as the demon of discord a few more times - I'm sure that some of the fickleness can be attributed to his influence. Right? Benefit of the doubt?

Bottom line:

Not as creepy as Unbreakable, but still quite entertaining in its own right, Unmarked is a solid sequel. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the first book, or hopes that it's going somewhere - it definitely is. Anyone who enjoys the bestsellers in the YA paranormal genre is going to like this one, I think!

4 stars
For fans of YA paranormal, love triangles, hot boys

Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper

The Basics:
Salt & Storm by Kendall Kulper
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
YA Paranormal
Published September 23, 2014
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon Kobo

Check out the first 11 chapters for free here.

Why I picked up this book:

I'm a sucker for a historical romance, and this one combines witches (cautious yay?) and a young woman who knows she's going to be murdered, which sounded kind of sad.

Unbreakable by Kami Garcia

The Basics:
Unbreakable by Kami Garcia
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Book One in the Legion series
YA, Urban Fantasy
Published October 1, 2013
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon.ca Kobo.com

Why I picked up this book:

The description read as being action-packed YA paranormal fun, and I wanted a dose of that! Also, I loved the cover.

Blurb:

I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.

When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn't know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy's room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon -- a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.

Now Kennedy has to take her mother's place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon -- battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.

Suspense, romance, and the paranormal meet in this chilling urban fantasy, the first book in a new series from Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of the Beautiful Creatures novels.

My thoughts:

I had middling expectations for Unbreakable. I read Beautiful Creatures and was a little on the fence about it, but I liked the sounds of Unbreakable, so I thought, what the heck?

Unbreakable succeeded at giving me a creepy ghost mystery. It's a fast-paced adventure, with lots of set-style locations - big concept places that we can all recognize and know as being haunted, as being places teenagers would venture on dares while all sane people steered clear. There's a cinematic quality to the places that this book is set and it's easy to imagine them.

The action was great, the pacing was go go go with a few well-timed pauses. I found it pretty entertaining - Unbreakable was never boring or slow.

In terms of characters, I liked Kennedy. She freezes when I think it was believable for her to freeze, and she acts when she's finally gets her feet under her in this strange new world wherein ghosts are real. Her certainty that she's unloveable felt a bit out of left field as she seems to have had some pretty strong relationships with her mother and her best friend. This element to her personality felt a little manufactured for the sake of drama.

I did *not* like the twins. It's not so much that I found them interchangeable (as I've read is a problem for other reviewers): I had two issues with the guys. First, I felt that they should be tighter as brothers than they were. There's a whole lot of blame and emotional turmoil and hurt feelings and left-out-itis going around. To me, this seemed like a lot of drama these guys couldn't afford to have. Given the rather exclusive club that they lived within, I wanted to see that the ties between them were complex but ultimately loving. Perhaps their relationship will be addressed with more depth in future books in the series - I certainly hope so as I think it's one area in which these books could really shine.

My second issue, and probably the more significant, is that I couldn't wrap my head around the love triangle. Why Kennedy? The insta-love was not believable for me at all, and easily the weakest element of the book. It happened so fast and in the middle of so much danger and drama that, for me the love felt forced.

The other two characters that fill most of the book - Priest and Alara - are sketched as being these types - mechanical engineering nerd and badass bitch. I think that as the story unfolds, they're given much more colorful personalities and traits. Their backgrounds in particular made them much more than first impressions suggest.

Bottom line:

Overall, Unbreakable is a good ghost-hunting story with a weak love triangle component. I want to read more because I liked the way the story flowed beyond the romantic element, and because I was entertained regardless of any flaws I thought the book might have.

From what I gather, comparisons to the tv series Supernatural are inevitable. I've only seen an episode or two of that show (inexplicably as it's the kind of show I love), so as a non-viewer, I can say that book was good. What influences, inspirations and connections can be draw between the two, I don't know, and that didn't affect my enjoyment of the book. Your mileage, obviously, may vary.

4 stars
For fans of YA paranormal, love triangles, hot boys

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

The Basics:
I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Book One in the Jasper Dent series
YA, Mystery
Published April 3, 2012
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Amazon.ca Kobo.com

Why I picked up this book:

There was something about it - maybe the Dexter-esque feel? - that called to me despite this being slightly outside my normal reading (which I'd characterize at this point as anything with a love story of any kind in it).

Blurb:

What if the world's worst serial killer...was your dad?

Jasper (Jazz) Dent is a likable teenager. A charmer, one might say.

But he's also the son of the world's most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, Take Your Son to Work Day was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could--from the criminal's point of view.

And now bodies are piling up in Lobo's Nod.

In an effort to clear his name, Jazz joins the police in a hunt for a new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret--could he be more like his father than anyone knows?

My thoughts:

Completely outside of my normal genres, I Hunt Killers was all kinds of awesome for me.

The son of a serial killer, Jasper 'Jazz' Dent has more baggage than your average seventeen year-old. His father was locked up for murdering more than a hundred people when Jazz was thirteen, and four years later, Jazz still wrestles constantly with whether or not he'll grow up to be the ultimate serial killer that his dad dreamed of or if he can lead something resembling a normal life.

I loved the way that Jazz thought - okay, maybe not the thoughts themselves, because not only is he seriously tormented by his vast, often first-hand knowledge of serial killing, but rather I love how it was all written. Jazz' awareness is uncanny. It's fascinating to read how he processes the world - filtering it through the lens that his dad taught him to have, wherein he's aware of how to kill, how to manipulate, how to manage situations to his own benefit, all the while conscious of *not* wanting to be like his dad, of wanting to believe that people are important. I was completely draw into Jazz' inner struggle, let alone the external dangers that he faces.

The murder mystery plot was more complex than I anticipated - I hugely underestimated this title, thinking it would be easy to figure out and more about the thrills and chills of the murders than anything, well, complex. Whoa! I was so, so wrong. It was completely engaging, and even when I figured I had it all solved, I was glued to the page (and also so, so wrong).

Jazz' best friend Howie is a hoot - a hemophiliac, he copes by having an incredible sense of humour and unswerving loyalty to Jazz. Connie, Jazz' girlfriend, is crazy tough, an excellent touchstone for Jazz.

When I finished the book, I wanted *more,* because this was so darn good, and because I have to know what happens next.

Bottom line:

I Hunt Killers is an excellent book. It's poignant, it's creepy. I loved the mystery, but more than that, I loved seeing how Jazz thought. I want to spent more time with him, immediately, and if I had the next book on hand, I would have sunk into it right away. Strongly recommend this title.

5 stars
For fans of murder mysteries, psychological thrillers (but at a YA-ish level), really good books.