The Stats
📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚
BOOK: Jennifer Strange
AUTHOR: Cat Scully @catmscully
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐
Published: July 21st 2020
The Review
Jennifer Strange is a young adult novel that masterfully straddles multiple lines. On one end, it is a young adult fantasy, not unlike the Mortal Instruments series. On the other, it is a dark and frightening supernatural horror, much like the Paranormal Activity movies. It uses the darkness and grittiness of the horror to temper the sappy teenage emotions, and then uses those feelings to keep the supernatural rooted in reality.
Jennifer is one of two girls born with supernatural powers, called Sparrows. She is the Sparrow of Summoning, who can give bodies to ghosts and demons just by touching them or their hosts. As an equivalent exchange, a golden mark grows across her body. If it consumes her, she dies. So of course, as soon as her powers manifest, her father dumps her off with her sister in the most haunted city in the United States. Smooth move. After an encounter with a demon that kills most of her class, she is led down a rabbit hole of dark spiritual activity that only she and the Sparrow of Banishing can handle…
But can she handle it? With no training, and her father’s journal half-ruined, Jennifer has no idea about the rules of her powers, or who the Sparrow of Banishment is. Her only help is the surly Marcus Blackwell, a boy in her class who is also heir to a line of psychic exorcists. Oh, yeah, her sister is there too, but how much could she know about all this (wink, wink)?
I thought my only issue with the story was Marcus. I spent most of the book angry with his behavior. He continually flip-flopped for no reason. He began as an absolute jerk to Jennifer because she couldn’t control a power she never got trained in. Then, upon learning her father abandoned her, he was suddenly okay. One little event later, he hated her again. I thought that this would be a fatal flaw in the book, but as I got close to the end, his behavior is given a reason. His irrationality was instead a subtle clue as to his own story, and I liked that.
*****
Summary
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Strange is the Sparrow, cursed with the ability to give ghosts and demonic spirits a body—a flesh and blood anchor in the mortal world—with the touch of her hand. When a ghost attacks her high school and awakens her powers, her father dumps her unceremoniously in the care of her estranged older sister Liz, leaving only his journal as an explanation.
Drawn to the power of the Sparrow, the supernatural creatures preying on Savannah, Georgia will do anything to receive Jennifer’s powerful gift. The sisters must learn to trust each other again and uncover the truth about their family history by deciphering their father’s journal…because if they can’t, Jennifer’s uncontrolled power will rip apart the veil that separates the living from the dead.
A fast-paced and splattery romp, fans of Supernatural, Buffy, and Evil Dead will enjoy JENNIFER STRANGE – the first illustrated novel in a trilogy of stylish queer young adult horror books with big scares for readers not quite ready for adult horror.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.