Review: The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

the lowdown

Cassie is a natural. She's a natural at reading people, and knowing a lot about them, just by looking at them. She just didn't know that this innate ability would catch the attention of the FBI. Cassie didn't know she'd become a Natural. The Naturals is a program run (secretly) by the FBI which hopes to train teens with natural abilities that could be useful in crime solving. When she's approached with an offer from them, she's shocked. Still reeling over the loss of her mother, and with an absentee (although he's in the military) father, Cassie decides she's not really tied down, and decides to enter the program, much to the chagrin of her grandmother, with whom she lives. Plus, in the back of her mind, she wonders if honing her ability might not help her solve her mother's murder. So she does it, and she decides to go live in a house run by the FBI, with other extraordinary teens, to learn how to catch serial killers.
I have to confess that this isn't a totally fair review, because I accidentally spoiled myself on a major plot point about 20 pages before it happened. I was enjoying the book so I decided to request the sequel from my local library, and in doing so, saw the description for the sequel, which included a major plot twist. Oops. So I can't pretend like this book shocked me, because I knew some pretty major stuff. That being said, I was kind of disappointed with this book anyway. It was still a good book, just not as good as I was hoping. I love a good murder mystery...Criminal Minds, CSI, Law and Order, Psych, Monk, you name it, I'm there. I thought that this concept had a lot of potential, I mean serial killer profiling teenagers? I'm so there. Unfortunately, I think very little of that potential was realized. Still, because I think there are so few well-written books that capture two of my favorite genres (mystery and contemporary YA), I'd still recommend giving this one a read if you like that combination.

the good 

• The premise was awesome and getting inside Cassie's head as she profiled people was definitely cool. There's obviously a little needed suspicion of disbelief to get on board with how much she's able to tell about someone about how they park their car at the mall, but I was willing to do it. I think that kind of stuff is fascinating. 
• The characters were pretty funny. Think about the kind of kids that would end up in a house for FBI trainees, add in a couple of grumpy FBI agents, and you've got a good yourself a good time. That being said, I wish that more had been done with them. Again, I felt like there was a lot of potential, with little of it being realized. There were two love interests, both with interesting backstories, but neither backstory was really explored. 
• Some parts of this book were really well done and made me not want to put the book down. Others were a little dull, to be honest. I think that the mystery was also really well handled, you know, until I ruined it for myself. The fact that there were parts that were that well done gives me faith for the future installments, where I hopefully don't spoil the ending. 

the bad 

• It was too young adult without being good at it. The romantic moments in the book just felt forced and honestly, a little juvenile (although I'm a slightly older YA reader). There was also a lot of house drama between the teenagers living there that just really didn't interest me. There wasn't enough meat on the bones of the YA stuff for it to be good, and then focusing so hard on trying to force that really detracted from the mystery aspect. Neither aspect was great, they were both just okay. 
• The love triangle. Dear Lord, this was the captain of all unnecessary love triangles. It was very frustrating, quite honestly, because I couldn't make myself give a crap about either of the guys because all the book talked about was their skill set. Again, no exploration of their admittedly kind of fascinating backgrounds. 

the quote
"No matter how long they did this job, or how much training they had, these agents would never have instincts as finely honed as ours."

skip it/borrow it/buy it
I borrowed this from the library (like I always do) and I don't regret it. The concept and the profiling is so cool that I definitely recommend reading it if you like that kind of stuff. I still requested the sequel, and will definitely give it a read. So still read it, but definitely borrow it.

overall score: 7/10

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