Unraveling

I feel bad writing this review because it's the first negative review I've posted. I must admit...I was very unimpressed with this book. I have never read a young adult book with so many swear words, and I don't think I've seen the F bomb dropped in a book that frequently ever. The story line was original, unless you've ever seen Veronica Mars, in which case, it wasn't. One of the reviews on the book says that it's something like Veronica Mars mixed with The X-Files. That's exactly what it is, really.

Janelle is a junior in high school whose mother is bi-polar and her FBI agent father is rarely around, so she gets to play mom to her younger brother, Jared. When she's hit by a car and killed instantly, she's brought back to life by Ben Michaels, a boy who Janelle has known from a distance for several years at school, but who has never even spoken to. After her return to the realm of the living, Janelle gets sucked into one of her dad's cases, in which people are dying by radiation poison at random. She has to figure it out before the end of the world.

The love story was sweet on his end and not believable for me on hers. I felt like I turned the page and she was suddenly declaring her undying love, when there had been no indication of it before that moment. The description of their physical attraction to each other also gets a bit steamy at one point.

Maybe it's because I really was just too turned off by all the foul words dotting the pages, but I really didn't enjoy this book very much. I was anxious to get it over with so I could move on to something else, and I closed it with great dissatisfaction.

Author: Elizabeth Norris
Recommended for: Is anyone ever old enough for a casual F-word smattering? Other than that, 16+
Cautions: Strong language (as I said), intense "love" scene, some very detailed descriptions of burned bodies.
Available in: Hardcover
Sequels: There will definitely be some. She left a big cliffhanger.
464 Pages