Thursday, January 14, 2016

#Thursday Review - The Killing Jar by Jennifer Bosworth (Young Adult, Paranormal)

Series: Standalone
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: January 12, 2016
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

“I try not to think about it, what I did to that boy.”

Seventeen-year-old Kenna Marsden has a secret. 

She’s haunted by a violent tragedy she can’t explain. Kenna’s past has kept people—even her own mother—at a distance for years. Just when she finds a friend who loves her and life begins to improve, she’s plunged into a new nightmare. Her mom and twin sister are attacked, and the dark powers Kenna has struggled to suppress awaken with a vengeance. 

On the heels of the assault, Kenna is exiled to a nearby commune, known as Eclipse, to live with a relative she never knew she had. There, she discovers an extraordinary new way of life as she learns who she really is, and the wonders she’s capable of. For the first time, she starts to feel like she belongs somewhere. That her terrible secret makes her beautiful and strong, not dangerous. But the longer she stays at Eclipse, the more she senses there is something malignant lurking underneath it all. And she begins to suspect that her new family has sinister plans for her…




Jennifer Bosworth's The Killing Jar is a standalone novel that features 17-year old Kenna Marsden. Kenna carries a deep, dark secret that only her mother knows about. When she was 10-years old, she drained the life force of a really naughty boy. Since then, she has kept her distance from nearly everyone, except for her best friend and next door neighbor, Blake Callahan. Things really unravel for Kenna when her mother Anya, and twin sister Erin who has a multitude of health afflictions, are attacked by someone out for revenge, and she saves them.

Kenna's actions in saving them both, forces her mother to make a difficult choice; she sends Kenna off to a commune like community called Eclipse, where people who call themselves Kalyptra reside. This includes Rebekah, her grandmother she never knew, but who controls every action of those who call Eclipse home. There is a deeper secret right under the surface of the calm, quiet setting that Kenna starts to call home. It also gives her the ability to feel like herself for the first time in a very long time. But, can Kenna wade through the secrecy of the commune, or will she find herself on the outside looking in?

There will be all sorts of feelings about Kenna and that is perfectly fine. She is a songwriter, who loves to play guitar. She tries to do whatever she can for her twin sister, knowing that her health problems will eventually take her away. She does her best to keep the demon inside her from taking anyone else, including the boy she is slowly connecting to, and may even love. I am curious about the ending of this book. There are so many questions left over. If the author were to come back and write a sequel, I wouldn't mind.

A good synopsis for this book would have been Crazy Vampires who suck the energy from humans, and everything around them. But, it's so much more than that. What was interesting to me was the secrecy behind Anya Marsden and Rebekah. I have to give Anya a whole lot of credit. She saw the way things really were, and tried to protect her daughters the only way she knew how. This includes the creepy Cyrus who seems to hang on to Rebekah's every word and shows desire for Kenna. It also includes Joanna who I kept hoping there was more to her chilly exterior that hatred for Kenna.

This is my first foray into the writing of Jennifer Bosworth and probably won't be my last. While I do have Struck, it sits on my book shelf collecting dust bunnies. Shame on me. 



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