The Naturals Series
August 28, 2020
The Naturals Series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes which consists
of the Naturals, Killer Instinct, All In, and
Bad Blood is probably one of the only murder-mystery novels
I’m going to read. I generally stay away from murder-mysteries
because they’re creepy and make me scared of the dark at night.
The Naturals was pretty good, and not even that scary (it is
published by Disney Hyperion…).
I was really impressed with how Jennifer Lynn Barnes was able to
keep the suspense EVERY SINGLE BOOK! I didn’t guess the killer or
even any accomplices in any of the books. It’s impressive that she
was able to keep the identity of the killer a mystery in all four
books, considering that she would need to do it four completely
unique ways.
I remember something Mr. Johnson, my high school physics teacher,
told the class about writing a murder-mystery. “You have to make
the reader hate themselves. If it’s too easy, the reader hates
you. If it’s too hard, the reader still hates you. But if it’s
just right, the reader hates themselves”, he said. I think
Jennifer Lynn Barnes was able to do that quite well. The reader
did always have a fair shot at figuring out the mystery
themselves, though I never figured out much more than teensy
scraps of information.
The relationships between and the character development of the
main characters, Cassie, Michael, Lia, Dean, and Sloane was done
remarkably well. All the novels revolved around one or more of the
characters, revealing aspects of their past and how they became a
natural.
Although there were some messed up things, there wasn’t anything
that bad that made me want to stop reading. Last month I read this
book called All Fall Down by Ally Carter, which was a
political thriller of sorts, and the premise is that the main
character, Grace, is determined to find her mother’s murderer.
Well, the climax near the end reveals that Grace herself
accidently shot her mother, and her subconscious repressed that
memory. That was extremely disturbing to me and I quit the series
after that.
I thought The Naturals Series was an interesting read!
Would definitely introspectively reread in a while so I can read
the murderer’s perspective knowing who the murderer is. I haven’t
read the novella Twelve yet, but I plan on getting to it
tonight.