Review: The Naturals By : Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Title: The Naturals

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Published: November 5th, 2013

Source: E-Galley from publisher

Buy The Book:  Amazon/Barnes and Noble

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars!

Goodreads Summary:

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.

My Thoughts:

The Naturals was the first book I have ever read by Jennifer Lynn Barnes and I was definitely pleasantly surprised and I completely loved this book.  If you like criminal television shows like The Mentalist and Criminal Minds like I do then you will definitely enjoy this book because it had the thrill, suspense, and our characters had the same skills as the characters on those television shows and it made it that much more enjoyable for me to read. I was completely sucked into the story and I finished this book in one day because I could not put it down. For me this book was perfect except for one thing, the romance.

Cassie can read people, by watching them she can tell you so many things about their lives that normal people would never know. Her whole life changes when a teenage boy stops in to the restaurant  and lives an FBI card. Cassie is intrigued, she isn't like most teenagers because her mother was murdered and it has haunted her, her whole life.  When Cassie meets with the FBI, she discovers they want her to  be a part of a undercover program for teens, they solve  cold cases for the FBI and there are more exceptional teenagers out there that have different talents and abilities that you can't even imagine. But , when the current case the FBI is working hits a bit close to home is when the real adventure starts.

Cassie was character that I was completely sure that  I was going to like when I first started because she seemed at bit cold at the beginning but, once I got to know her more I began to like her even more and understand who she was and what she was going through.  She handled everything that threw at her remarkably well, her whole life changed when she joined The Naturals program. I was intimidated by the abilities that the other teens in the program had and I was blown away by Cassie's profiling ability and it completely enthralled me and I could not stop reading.

The only thing that I didn't like was the romance,  I don't know if you could even call it romance but , honestly it felt like it just got in the way of the story and I would have loved this book just as much without it. But, it didn't add to the story  and it felt like it was forced at times and out of place with the story.

Overall, The Naturals was a thriller that I loved and reminded me of some of my favorite television shows and it kept me on the tip of my toes with its suspense and it's twists which I didn't see coming! I definitely recommend this one it was definitely a pleasant surprise!

 Want some more thoughts on The Naturals? Check out the links below!

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