The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Review of The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Published: March 16, 2010

5 out of 5 smirks

Synopsis: “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 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 dead birds her cat left for her. But now that a serial killer is terrorizing her small town, and the echoes of the local girls he's claimed haunt her daily, Violet realizes she might be the only person who can stop him.

Despite his fierce protectiveness over her, Jay reluctantly agrees to help Violet find the murderer—and Violet is unnerved by her hope 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.”

Let me say first off, I borrowed this book from the library and I am always extremely thankful when I borrow before buying because sometimes the book I am reading and I just do not click. That is not true in the case of The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting. I was so impressed with every aspect of this book that I now want to own it. Kimberly Derting has a real knack for telling a story, creating insanely complex and sometimes frightening characters, as well as the lure (of the story). The Body Finder depending on if you read the prologue or not, lures you in with a story of butterflies in your stomach of your first heart stopping crush. For me, this is a great way to get me hooked on a story to see if the two main characters have the same feelings for each other or if it wasn’t meant to be.

Violet and Jay who grew up best friends and share all their secrets, all that fantastically good stuff, are characters who when you read you automatically fall in love with. As readers we get to see these truly realistic characters go through their friendship, hard times, fights that seem like they last forever, and truth within each one of themselves. When I read about Violet and Jay, about their friendship, I think “yea, that’s what a best friend is.” It was just really eye opening and amazing that Kimberly Derting could write the complex details of what a best friendship is. Another thing I want to say about The Body Finder is that it makes your heart stop for many different reasons throughout the book. I guess the mystery of it all almost seems like a thriller sometimes and has you on the edge of your seat, which I dig.

The most impressive thing about The Body Finder though was how Kimberly Derting played out the character of the killer. I started reading this book at 8 pm and was finished at 2 am, so when I went to bed I was still scared shitless of the killer in this story. Kimberly Derting’s writing in the mind of the killer was so profoundly real that I was worried to go to sleep last night. As a criminal justice major part of what I study is getting into the minds of criminals themselves and reading The Body Finder was like reading a description of an actual killer. It was truly extraordinary in the most amazing way because it affected me in such a huge way. Kimberly Derting is one of those authors who can not only research for a story or a book and make it turn out realistically, but she is an author who can bring her characters to life. And like I said The Body Finder had a great affect on me, I was scared, sad, upset, depressed, happy, and even sometimes I did my cheerleader thing and squealed at one of the butterfly moments. Books like The Body Finder are why I read books in the first, easily 5 out of 5 smirks.

To learn more about Kimberly Derting please visit her website, http://www.kimberlyderting.com/.