The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (The Naturals,#1)
The Naturals is an incredibly gripping, fast-paced young adult thriller mystery which revolves around the lives of five teenagers: Cassie, Sloane, Dean, Lia and Michael - who are all part of a program created by the FBI called the 'naturals'.
Each 'natural' possesses a specific gift - some can detect deception, analyse stats, easily read facial expressions and emotions, and get into criminals minds to fill in the missing pieces and are also able to mirror a persons thought patterns, personality, behaviour and environment. It was really interesting to see them interact with one and other (their individual gifts making it all the more intriguing) - and I cannot even imagine living in a house with all of them haha!
The Naturals Program is a classified endeavour which utilises these exceptionally skilled teenagers to crack infamous cold cases.
This being the first book in the series, follows Cassie as she joins the program and has to grapple with being surrounded by people who are never exactly what they seem. And when a new killer strikes and danger looms closer to Cassie than she could have ever imagined - the Naturals find themselves caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse, and they will need all their wits about them to survive.
Jennifer Lynn Barnes is an incredibly popular YA author - though I unfortunately didn't have the best luck with her other series The Inheritance Games (you can read my review for it here: https://keyalovesbooks.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-inheritance-games-by-jennifer-lynn.html) - so I'm very happy and pleasantly surprised to report that I absolutely loved reading this book and ended up giving it 5 stars!
I do think that it had a bit of a slow start but it picks up almost immediately after and I simply couldn't put it down, and had to binge-read it. I loved the shortness of the chapters and the writing style (which was simple but packed an emotional punch), and every chapter ends on a mini-cliffhanger of-sorts which makes it impossible to stop reading. I loved getting to know each of the people part of the Naturals program, and while they were all pretty well fleshed out I'm very excited to learn more about them as I continue with the series. There was also a sub-plot with a developing love triangle (which somehow manages to not be irritating - this is coming from someone who very rarely enjoys this trope) and I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops as well.
I had so so many theories throughout and for what the end of the book was going to look like but the plot twist at the end left me completely speechless and I didn't see it coming at all.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a fun thrilling/mystery/suspenseful read, with short chapters, twist and a tiny hint of romance.
Thank you so much for reading this if you got this far :)
Happy Reading! 📚💖
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