Death and the Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones
- Pub. Date: October 2, 2012
- Publisher:St. Martin's Press
- Pages:304
- Series:Darklight #1
- Amazon/Goodreads/Book Depository
High school is not quite as painful as she thinks it will be, and things are as normal as they can be. Until the day the school's designated loner, Cameron Lusk, begins to stalk her, turning up where she least expects it, standing outside her house in the dark, night after night. Things get even more complicated when a new guy—terrifying, tough, sexy Jared Kovach—comes to school. Cameron and Jared instantly despise each other and Lorelei seems to be the reason for their animosity. What does Jared know about her parents? Why does Cameron tell Jared he can't have Lorelei? And what will any of them do when Death comes knocking for real?
First Line: The small town of Riley's Switch, New mexico, had only one coffee house, and I sat at a booth in it with my two best friends.
Review: I really love Darynda Jones Charley Davidson series which is why I was excited to get my hands on her new YA novel Death and the Girl Next Door, but *sighs* I was not a fan of her latest novel, it fell short of what I expected. Do not get me wrong I loved the witty banter and humor that she thankfully also brought to this series but the plot and the characters were all too cliched.
My two pet peeves in YA books are love triangles, which thankfully there was none of that and my biggest pet peeve which is insta-love and this novel had that in big bold capital letters INSTA-LOVE, it was just a little too much. Actually this was one of those books where the romance came first and then the actual plot which by the way there were quite a few plot holes as well. Not to mention I got so annoyed with being reminded how hot Jared is. I get it the guy is sexy...jaw dropping gorgeous etc lets just move on from that.
Now as for the actual characters Lorelei had the classic case of she is beautiful but doesn't know it, and considers herself a plain Jane. One thing that bugged me was when she died and was brought back to life she didn't question it all, just accepted it. Accepted everything really, about who Jared was, what Cameron was and then her and what her role was in all of it, she just took it all with stride. Which of course made her a very unrealistic character and in no way relatable. As for Jared he was an old being and it showed when compared to Lorelei and her friends. Jared had a maturity level that Lorelei and her friends didn't possess which also made the two hooking up seem so unlikely to really happen. None of the characters really grabbed me the only two that made somewhat of an impression were her friends Glitch and Brooklyn they are the reason I'm giving this book an extra half star.
I'm still a little upset that I didn't love this book seeing what an amazing author Darynda Jones is, I had really high hopes for this one and like I said I love her other series, but this series of hers is just not for me. There were too many things that I couldn't get past to really enjoy the book. Overall Death and the Girl Next Door was just a little too all over the place that I do not see myself picking up the next book in the series.
