August Book Club Books
The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
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.
Shelf Awareness Teen Book Club
I absolutely adored The Naturals! It was by far one of my favorite book club reads. It's perfect for fans of Criminal Minds who want something more geared towards young adults. It is filled with mystery, suspense, and an epic love triangle. Jennifer Lynn Barnes' specialty is love triangles. She constantly had me jumping between boys as I tried to make the impossible decision of who I wanted Cassie to end up with.
The Naturals hooks you from the very beginning. There is very little filler information, and it takes you straight into the deep end. It is fast-paced, with short chapters and a mystery POV every few chapters that makes you realize the danger the teenagers are facing. Sometimes, I forget that Cassie isn't just living in a house with other teenagers for the fun of it but that she is actually hunting serial killers, and the mysterious POV just made it so much more real.
I'm so obsessed with these characters and can't wait to learn more about them. The group of five teenagers is so incredibly different, but they all have one thing in common: trauma. Luckily, it wasn't very heavy, and I didn't feel myself being weighed down by the other characters' trauma, as most of them have light-hearted personalities that they use to hide their trauma. Also, one of my favorite things is how protective they all are of each other. They don't show it very often, but they would die for each other. The characters very much fell into the found family trope, but I won't say I didn't like it.
Cassie was not my favorite character, but she was by far the most fascinating. In the Naturals, she is a profiler, so she can analyze people and determine things about them, which is one of the reasons she was flagged by the FBI for their Naturals program, a special program that recruits teenagers with exceptional profiling skills to help solve crimes. It was interesting to see how she steps into the minds of criminals and takes on their persona to determine why they are the way they are, although, at times, it can be a little creepy, especially when she starts referring to herself as "I" or "You" when talking about killing someone.
Michael is the classic chill dude who poses as the comic relief. He has a fun, energetic personality that always brings a smile to your face. Basically, he's the golden retriever character. Another plus is that he reads Jane Austen. How many men read Jane Austen and can actually quote it? Michael can and that makes him so much more loveable. He definitely has trauma, but it hasn't really been explained very much. I can't wait to find out how he ended up in the Naturals program. My one downside in Michael's character is that he is basically a copy and paste of Jameson Hawthorne from the Inheritance Games. Or rather, Jameson is a copy and past of Michael, seeing as the Naturals was written before the Inheritance Games. However, it's not that important because I love them both.
Dean is probably one of my favorite characters. He's the mysterious and brooding character who spends hours in the gym and glares at Cassie as if he would rather be anywhere else than with her. Now, the amount of trauma this kid has is honestly insane. Like, he desperately needs therapy. But that doesn't change the fact that I love him. While it's not confirmed who Cassie will end up with, I desperately wish for it to be Dean. They are so cute together.
Sloane is a teenage blonde Spencer Reid, and she's adorable. She lacks social awareness skills, has kleptomania, and has a caffeine addiction that honestly makes me question how she hasn't had a heart attack yet. We don't know much about her, and I hope she plays a bigger role in the next book.
Lia is the definition of femme fatale. She has an impeccable fashion sense but has a bad habit of stealing others' clothes. We also don't know much about her character other than that she is an expert liar and manipulator.
Plot-wise, the Naturals was amazing, and dare I say, I enjoyed it more than the Inheritance Games. I had to live with the fact that the characters were all smarter than me. Also, you will be wrong about who the murderer is, so just resign yourself to that fact now. No matter who I guessed or how close I thought I was, Jennifer Lynn Barnes was always ten steps ahead to throw me a major curveball.
Overall, this book left me wanting more, and I can't wait to pick up the next one!
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide
Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.
Literary Ladies Book Club
Anyone who appreciates great literature will enjoy this book! The God of the Woods is a combination of historical fiction, mystery, and women's fiction, with multiple POVs that will take you through the minds of different characters as the mystery unfolds.
I really enjoyed the characters because they were written at such a complex level that I had to dig deep to understand them. Once you look past the depression, addiction, and other issues that different characters deal with, it is easy to connect with them and understand their decisions. We also gain insight into their view of life through the many different POVs throughout the book.
Tracey, a young, meek girl, is sent to a summer youth camp after her parents' divorce. She is left reeling from the changes in her life and can't help but view herself as an outsider until she connects with Barbara, a girl with a straightforward and confident personality.
Alice is a mentally unstable pill addict, also known as Barbara's mother. She cuts herself off from the rest of the world after the loss of her son, even going as far as turning away her family as she deals with her grief alone.
Louise is a 26-year-old camp counselor with the responsibility of taking care of and raising her little brother after her addict of a mother gave up the responsibility. As she fights to keep a roof over their head, she struggles to handle so much.
All of the women in this book have a different story to tell about how everyone copes differently when facing hardships and how to protect their loved ones in difficult or even dangerous situations. Each character in God of the Woods is flawed, honest, and complex, with different life lessons weaved into their being.
Liz Moore had a magical way of transporting her readers into her story with her beautiful descriptions. I could visualize the nature, the summer camp, the characters, and the fine-tuned details that made the book perfect. But as much as I loved all the descriptions, they almost felt like too much. The God of the Woods is a 500+ page book, and I think it could have been cut down and still kept the suspenseful element that I so much enjoyed.
The God of the Woods starts out really well. I found the beginning compelling, with lots of interesting characters and perspectives. But then, as the investigation into Barbara's disappearance heats up, a few things start to really bother me, and it goes a bit downhill from there.
The pacing didn't really fit with the storyline. It was a slow build-up to the grand finale that stretched on for hundreds of pages. The mystery aspect of the book was also prolonged, which sometimes I didn't mind as it allowed me to just sit back and get to know the characters, but considering this book is marketed as a thrilling mystery, I didn't find it very thrilling. My heart didn't race with adrenaline at the thought of the characters being thrown into danger. This doesn't stray from the fact that it was a good book; it just read more like literacy fiction than a mystery novel.
However, what really bothered me was that lots of times clues were laid out in the story, seemingly to point in one direction, but then the story disregards almost everything and ends on something completely different. Some of the clues laid out to solve the mystery were never addressed, as if the only purpose was to mislead the readers and that they could just forget about them. I think if you are going to have a 500+ page book, then every word, every detail, and every clue must be essential to get to the final ending, and I don't think Liz Moore did that.
I definitely would have enjoyed it more if I were into literacy fiction with layers upon layers of meaning. Unfortunately, that's not where my interests lie. Still, despite my complaints, I did find this to be an intriguing read, and there were moments when I really got into the mystery, desperate to know more.
Written by Carlie Renee
