To Read, Perchance to Dream: Book Review: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Violet Ambrose is grappling with two major issues: Jay Heaton and her morbid secret ability. While the sixteen-year-old is confused by her new feelings for her best friend since childhood, she is more disturbed by her "power" to sense dead bodies—or at least those that have been murdered. Since she was a little girl, she has felt the echoes that the dead leave behind in the world... and the imprints that attach to their killers.

Violet has never considered her strange talent to be a gift; it mostly just led her to find the dead birds her cat had tired of playing with. But now that a serial killer has begun terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, she realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet on her quest to find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved to find herself hoping that Jay's intentions are much more than friendly. But even as she's falling intensely in love, Violet is getting closer and closer to discovering a killer... and becoming his prey herself.

This is a young adult novel that, in my opinion, doesn't translate as well for adults to enjoy, too. But it is a novel that young adults would enjoy, which is what it was written for!

The storyline seems to be a roller coaster, moving faster, then slower, then faster again. Violet's "power" is unique and interesting and it's easy to be drawn in when she's using it. When the story moves to school, friends and who likes who, it tends to drag and just isn't as interesting.

The two main characters, Violet and Jay are written very well, but the secondary characters seem two dimensional. The "bad" guy is glossed over very quickly, it would have been much more interesting to read more about him.

I think young adults probably would enjoy this book.