Review: Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Thanks to Net Galley for allowing me to review this book

4 out of 5

Synopsis:
Every other day, Kali D'Angelo is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She goes to public high school. She attends pep rallies. She's human.

And then every day in between . . .She's something else entirely.

Though she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it environmental terrorism.

When Kali notices a mark on the lower back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours to save her and, unfortunately, she'll have to do it as a human. With the help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might not survive. . .and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in the process.

My Review:
So. I had no expectations about this book. I haven't read anything by the author before so this was completely new. However the storyline intrigued me and I started reading.

The start was slow and a little vague. You actually had to read every word just to grasp what was happening and understand who Kali (our narrator) is. We find out soon that she's a hunter, a predator of preternatural beings. From this point we're thrown into a world of beasties and other mythical beings - Kali has the urge, need, thrall to kill them all. She smells blood, she 'feels' weapons and she contantly counts down the time to her next change.

Then - pow - just like that she's sat on her school bleachers next to a girl she doesn't know who turns out to be Skylar, her new friend. And Kali is a human. From here the story really starts and we meet Bethany, high school hottie and the IT girl.

Without repeating the story and writing spoilers the bizarre things start to happen for Kali, Skylar, Bethany and soon Skylars brothers all begin to become involved with the story.

The narrative is first person POV from Kali, and I liked her as a character, Skylar is a loveable character that I think we'd all like to have as a BFF and Bethany comes up trumps also by going against the grain and sticking with Kali.

As written earlier, while I found the book very difficult to put down until the very end, I DID find that a lot of the narrative (particularly ¼ in) was repetative - Kali questions who she is, where she came from, what she is etc to the point where it gets a little bit boring and self-centred. There is only so much of the constant explanations about what she can do, how she can kill, how she feels no pain (which she actually does), and about how she can't die (although again she almost does). This spoilt it as I kept wanting to shout at her to shut up - I've heard this already before, get on with it - and it dragged until we reached Beths house and met her weird mother.

I think the descriptions were good but a little under-rated, I definitely think the book could do with stronger creativity as again I was left almost feeling that Zev was a figure of her imagination and NOT an actual person (silver eyes, dark hair and sharp cheek bones is really all we know about what he looks like). I like to create a definitive image in my head of the characters and felt it was almost impossible in this story, apart from Kali herself.

I loved the storyline of Chimera and the experiments. Clearly the author has done her scientific homework. I'm not an expert on this area so everything I read was absolutely believable.
I thought the action was the highlight of the book and really held everything together. I love a strong female warrier-like character and Kali is all this.

The end was a bit of a surprise in the way that I hoped for a stronger relationship and more interaction with Zev...its almost left to the last page to discover what happens and then we're left hanging a little.

I wonder whether the author is thinking of a followup because I really felt that the story was meant for a follow on. I mean, we've all had to wait until ¾ into the book to 'get' it and now its almost over?? I want to know what happens next with Kali, Zev, Eliot and Bethany!!!!

A good read - 4 out of 5.