Sixteen-year-old Violet has the unusual ability to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. She locates them by the echoes they leave behind...and the imprints they leave on their killers. Violet has never considered her strange ability to be a gift—more like a very disturbing nuisance.
But when a serial killer begins terrorizing her small town, and more and more local girls go missing and later turn up dead, Violet realizes she may be the only person who can stop him. Violet's best friend since childhood, Jay, is reluctantly helping her—and Violet is beginning to realize that what she feels for Jay is much more than just friendship. But even as she and Jay fall in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering the killer and becoming his prey herself.
Wow this book was intense. It was like a really good episode of Bones, except you had to read it. Which was the annoying part.
Violet was a decent main character, she seemed grounded enough (not one of those prissy girls who only wants to fall in love while the world is ending behind her) but when her and Jay did start to 'explore' each other the book started to fall into that PNR trap. That is the only reason this book took me forever to read. I got the e-book, took it everywhere with me, but it still took me over 2 weeks to finish it. Kinda pathetic I know, but the premise kept me coming back for more.
Violet senses dead bodies and happens to come across a serial killer in the process. Said serial killer finds out she's on his trail and chaos ensues.
I'm not going to give details because that was the best part of the book.
But there were also these entries from the serial killer's point of view that I liked. They reminded me of the scenes in Criminal Minds where you see who the killer is and what he's doing while the police are trying to find him. Another point of view that's written well and has a distinct voice is ALWAYS an asset to a story. Especially a murder mystery novel!
Ok, so I'm done raving now, and I'm going to mention the stuff I didn't like so much about The Body Finder.
First, the Jay-Violet love story. We all knew it was gonna happen, the author didn't exactly write a curveball in that department. It starts off with Violet coming back to school from summer vacation seeing her BFF as something more. It develops into her pining over him for what seems like ever, until he kisses her. Then they are happy love birds and the story finally moves on.
Granted the e-book was only around 250 pages, but this sappy love tale lasted for at least 100 of them. Everytime something about the killer was mentioned, Violet and Jay spent the next 30 pages 'doing homework'...if you know what I mean. *winky face*
Second, the idea that since Violet senses imprints of the dead, if she walked around public places long enough, she was bound to bump into the killer. What the hell kind of stupid idea is that?!?!
She's going to randomly walk around to find the guy kidnaping and killing a bunch of girls her age? She was with Jay the whole time, but still two teenagers against an experienced killer isn't much of a match. I don't care how buff Jay thinks he is.
And lastly, I hated the ending. Again, I'm going to cut the details because it was worth reading just to get the point of the book, but still it bothered me. I fully believe that some characters should die. Some books end better that way. They just do.
Overall, 4 stars for effort and a compelling murder case. Cut out the stupid lovesick puppy story and it would have been 5 stars no problem.
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