The Body Finder

The Body Finder

By: Kimberly Derting

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 had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he’s claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping 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.

summary from book

My Rating: 3.5/5

The first thing that drew me to The Body Finder was its uniquely fascinating concept. I was intrigued by Violet and her ability. Combine this with the rave reviews that this book was receiving paired with Kimberly Derting's awesomeness (seriously, her blog is hilarious) and I knew I had to read it.

What I loved the most about this book was the multiple elements it contained. There was mystery, romance, suspense, and a paranormal element as well. I enjoyed that Violet was a normal teenage girl at her core who just happened to be burdened by something extraordinary. Her worries were somewhat different thanks to her "gift" but deep down, she was very fueled by normal teenage girl thoughts and behaviors. I enjoyed the added romance and how Violet's romantic life kept me just as intrigued and her paranormal one. I'll admit that I've read suspense/mystery novels where the author naturally infuses other elements into their story line a common one being a love interest of some sort. On a few occasions, I've just skimmed over those parts because in the context of the book, they were not what I wanted to read about. With The Body Finder, Kimberly Derting was able to make all of the elements equally as entertaining and gripping.

Character wise, I really liked Violet. My favourite thing about her was that she was in no way a pushover. She stood her ground and always vocalized her opinions.

"Violet missed him almost immediately, and then she chastised herself for being one of those girls. You know, the ones who can't function without their boyfriends around... it was gross, really, and she definitely did not want to join their club."

I wanted to hug Violet after she had thought this. It was refreshing to see a young adult female character representing this kind of mentality.

Aside from Violet, I also enjoyed her small group of girl friends. They were funny and represented the normal aspects of Violet's life. Then there's Jay who is great and who bloggers have kind of been fawning over. He was a nice guy don't get me wrong but he fell kind of short for me. I think my standards are too high with literary male characters who pose as possible love interests. I think I compare them too much to other past great ones that I've really enjoyed. D: I really should ease up on them.

Also, I have to give credit to Kimberly for her writing. She is fantastic with detail and descriptive passages and writes them with great ease. She has a very nice and smooth way of writing which made The Body Finder all the more enjoyable to read.

You can look for Desires Of The Dead, the sequel to The Body Finder in 2011. Personally, I can see this as a standalone novel but I look forward to seeing where Derting takes Violet and her world next!