Thursday, March 22, 2012

Blurb via Goodreads
Eighteen-year-old Jenny Morton has a horrific secret: her touch spreads a deadly supernatural plague, the "Jenny pox." She lives by a single rule: Never touch anyone. A lifetime of avoiding any physical contact with others has made her isolated and painfully lonely in her small rural town.

Then she meets the one boy she can touch. Jenny feels herself falling for Seth...but if she's going to be with him, Jenny must learn to use the deadly pox inside her to confront his ruthless and manipulative girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all.

* * *

Not recommended for readers under eighteen.

BONUS: Includes an excerpt of Glimpse by Stacey Wallace Benefiel.

The complete Paranormals trilogy--Jenny Pox, Tommy Nightmare, and Alexander Death--is now available

About this author via Goodreads

J.L. Bryan studied English literature at the University of Georgia and at Oxford, with a focus on English Renaissance and Romantic literature. He also studied screenwriting at UCLA. He lives in Atlanta with his wife Christina, dogs Violet and Tiger Lily, and cats Shadow and Sue.

My review.

I fell in love with the story of Jenny almost from the first page.  I loved the sick, dark twisted reality to explicitly told but not explained.  It has been a long time since I was so chilled by the true extent of human depravity and pure evil as portrayed through Ashleigh.  I love to hate that girl.  She is bad to the bone and although lovely to look at, popular etc she is evil incarnate.

I loved the fact that Ashleigh uses sex as her main power.  I often wonder if women simply not acknowledge that they use sex in such a manner as to prove to themselves that they are not a such and such or if they simply not know that they are.  In this book, Ashleigh's use of sex is extremely prevalent and extreme although not all the sex scenes are explicit.  It is those perpetrated by Ashleigh that is both explicit and deeply disturbing, warranting the 18 rating.  The rest is not as explicit and at times not even explored. 

Jenny is a very rare character.  She is supposed to be evil incarnate but from her earliest introduction into the story the reader will find that she is not only loveable but remarkable.  You learn to respect her for the choices she makes, a rare trait in any YA novel, especially in a paranormal novel. 

Oh, the paranormal part, well …. You see, Ashleigh, Jenny and Seth all have three very different powers.  But the evil lies not in their powers, but in how they choose to use and corrupt it.  So although their powers plains a large role in the story it is actually the corruption of their powers that forms the base line for this brilliant story. 

Seth, well Seth should be the guy, I for one, would have hated.  I believe you work for what you want in life, not receive it on a silver platter, guess what, Seth does.  To my bliss and astonishment Seth is a persons, person.  He might be rich but he will love unconditionally, stand for his beliefs even if he stands alone!  I loved Seth's character and I am sure I would have loved to have met a boy like him way back when.

Without giving away plot twists or spoilers I can't say much more apart from the fact that I would recommend it to all my friends 18 years and up as a brilliant must read book.  Since it is free, even better.  But guess what, I so plan to buy the second book in this series as soon as I get some money.  So come April 1st I will be torturing you all with daily updates of my new brilliant read by J.L Bryan.  And that friends, is basically the best recommendation of all.  Go get this book.  Do yourself a favour.


I give this book a 9 *** *** *** rating.  I would have given it a ten but I am sure the second book in the series might be even better.

4 comments:

  1. I have this book on my kindle great review.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like the idea of this one (I love to hate characters - much more fun than hating people in real life). It's on my list! Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks guys, you really should bump this one up on your TBR. It will so be worth it.....

    ReplyDelete