Review: THE NATURALS by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (+Giveaway!)

Title: The Naturals

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Publication date: November 5, 2013

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Source: an ARC provided by the publisher for an honest review

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.

What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides— especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own.

Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.

Soon, it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

Review: 

I don't even know where to begin. I really don't. I read it a few days ago (from writing this review) and I have no idea how to express my feelings. If you want the bottom line, here it is: 

This was terrific. 

You know how when you're starving and you start eating a delicious meal, you have to force yourself to eat slower? All you really want to do is stuff your face and then hoard the pie in your room. The Naturals was like that. I've read good books recently (and some not-so-good), but not to the caliber as this one. I had to force myself to not read it all in one night because it was already way too late and I had class in the morning. I forced myself to not hide in my room too long because I have to socialize with the outside world ugh, socializing, who needs it?

After her mother died and her father went out of the country, Cassandra Hobbes was shipped off to her dad's family, a family she has never known and feels completely out of place with. They try their best and she even tries to be part of their boisterous Italian family. However, she can't help feeling like an out of place burden. Then she has a weird encounter with a guy at the restaurant she works at. That's where the fun begins.

She has an exchange with a guy at the restaurant she works in and he leaves an FBI card. After a couple days of curiosity, she calls and agrees to meet Agent Briggs (not the same guy who she had a guessing game of eggs with at the restaurant) at his office. There, she runs into Michael, the guy at the restaurant, who I instantly liked. 

He shrugged, "My inner Boy Scout had to try."

If this guy had an inner Boy Scout, I had an inner flamingo.

Cassie is a Natural. She's always had a knack for profiling people as if it was a sixth sense. Her mother used to teach her some things, but Cassie's ability isn't teachable or learnable. It was, cue the cheesy irony, natural. When Agent Briggs introduces her to the idea of being in a program where they train you to solve for cold case murders, Cassie knows she has to do it. Not only because she feels like she's out of place where she is now, but she also feels that maybe she could one day solve her mother's cold case murder. 

After that rundown of the beginning, I know some people don't like multiple main characters and plots to keep track of. However, in this story, it might seem like that at first, but it's very fast paced and very easy to understand. 

The characters: 

I loved the characters. It was all a diverse group even from the minor of the minor characters. Take her family for instance. Italian families can be frustrating, but I find them lovable. They care and show all their feelings. She described hers, even though she barely knew them, quite well. 

Nobody stages an intervention like my father's family stages an intervention. The Bat-Signal had nothing on the Battaglia-Signal, and less than twenty-four hours after Nonna sent out the distress call, the family had gathered force. There was yelling and screaming and crying—and food. Lots of food. 

I know she had to leave her family so that she could go to the program and be in the house with all the other Naturals, but I actually hated leaving the family. I wanted to know more about them. 

There are four other Naturals besides Cassie: 

• Michael. He is an emotion reader. He can read your emotions and that can be unnerving for a girl. We meet Michael first and I personally loved him. With a little bit of mystery and lots of wit, I could just feel his smirk radiate off the pages. He seemed very kissable. 
• Lia. She is a deception specialist. Basically, she's a human lie detector. With that, she's also the best at lying. Throughout the book, I couldn't tell if we were supposed to like her or distrust her, but I knew that I did like her a lot. Snarky, tough, witty, and with a splash of mean girl. She reminded me a lot of Macey from The Gallagher Girls. 
• Sloane. She is a statistician. She spouts random facts and statistic, checks hypothesis, and is the weird, smart one of the bunch. Think Liz from The Gallagher Girls, but more dorky and socially awkward. 
• Dean. He is another profiler. He's the last to be introduced and the most mysterious. He's portrayed as dark and has deep issues. Cassie is instantly intrigued by him and I will not say who I am more for, whether it be Dean or Michael. Because, yes, there is a love triangle.

That's the other thing: the love triangle. Beware, Lauren. I personally thought it was tastefully done. I picked my guy from the beginning, but Barnes does a fantastic job of keeping me torn throughout the book and making me question who she's even going to pick. The triangle wasn't the main focus of the book, thank goodness, but from memory, I feel that it was the best love triangle I've read. Besides The Hunger Games until Mockingjay, of course. 

Another thing that I loved about the book was the facts about how profilers work. I have always been interested with the FBI (you can see that in my DVR) so while there was some information dumping in parts, I liked them. I liked all the background information. These abilities that the group of kids have are not paranormal or supernatural. They're real. They may be dramatized a bit, but these skills are abilities I love to be entertained with through shows or books or movies. Barnes does a wonderful job of keeping it realistic, but entertaining.

In addition, there is certainly a creepy factor going on. The book starts with a page of someone talking to "You" and you will get a page of that after almost every chapter. We soon find out that "You" is to the serial killer. Because profiler Agent Locke, Cassie, and Dean say to never say "he" or "she," but to always reference the killer and victim as "you" or "I" or "UNSUB." I'm telling you guys, I was creeped out (and I promise that Banres does a way better job explaining that whole UNSUB thing). I loved getting inside the killer's head and looking at the victims through their eyes, but I don't read much mystery and creepy books. When you are spending the night at an elderly person's house next to a window, a non-lockable door, late at night, and you are the closest near the front door in this tiny house...you would be spooked out as well. I get paranoid and I loved how my emotions varied during the book. 

I cannot even start to express my feelings on the twists. For the love of cupcakes, I loved the twists. Love is such an understatement. There were a couple "surprises" sprinkled throughout, but I guessed those. However, at about chapter 29, we hit the biggies. I felt like I was getting whipped around. Some of my exclamations and thoughts and verbal mutterings are below: 

"Oh my gosh." 

"THAT'S the killer! Wait...what? Who?"

"No! No...no? Really?"

"HOLD UP. WHERE IS THE PAUSE BUTTON FOR THIS?"
"Oh my stinking gosh." Note: I don't curse so this is as close as I get. 

"WHAT?!"

"This is wrong beyond all levels. I can't...I just can't."

"OH MY GOSH."

*puts down book and tries to sleep, but fails and lays in bed for another hour*

Hands down, this book has been my favorite this year, except for United We Spy, of course. I had an extreme book hangover afterwards and it stopped my reading for a couple days because I knew that if I started to read another book, I wouldn't be invested into it as I was with The Naturals. Like every book, it had a couple flaws, but they were so minuscule that they didn't matter to me.

Verdict: Captivating. Wonderful. Brought out all the reader emotions. Can I have the sequel NOW? 

WAIT!

There's more! Because I loved it so much, I want to give you all a chance to win and read it as well. 

The Three Rules:

• Thou shalt not cheat
• Thou shall answer the winner's email in 48 hours or less
• Thou shall live in the USA (sorry)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Note: The quotes were taken from an ARC.