The Novel Strumpet Reviews Every Other Day By Jennifer Lynn Barnes! Book Reviews! Sexy Females! Whoo Hoo!

I love me some kick ass female characters… See my love for Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, Mean Girls, etc… so when the Novel Strumpet reviews a novel with a cool ass female in the lead… I get excited for the movie version! Good times…

Today our resident Book Reviewer is taking a peek at Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes! It’s a novel about Kali a young girl with secrets… ohhhhhhh very cool!

Check out the Strumpet’s full review after the jump!

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Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Kick butt female character? Check. Urban Fantasy? Check. Interesting spin on the supernatural? Check. Wee bit (and I mean wee bit) of romance? Check?

Kali is a seventeen year old with a big secret, every other day she’s not human. Every other day she turns into a killing machine, the prey being the very preternatural creatures the government is trying to tell people are “endangered species” or pieces of evolution. But Kali knows differently, so every other day, she’s invincible with no fear and no pain. But on those other days (ok I’ll stop now I swear…it was just too easy) she’s as human as the rest of us. It’s a lonely existence, not even her father pays enough attention to her to comment on the blood she’s constantly washing out of her clothes. Until the day she saves a girl’s life at school, and suddenly Kali, who’s been on her own nearly her entire life, suddenly has to face most frightening thing of all…caring about someone other than herself.

This had me from the word go, and I’m really hoping it’s part of a series because there is a lot of “to be continued…” in there. Yeah, it’s another YA novel about the supernatural but there’s really nothing fluffy in this one. Like I said, there seems to be a romance building, but it is so miniscule, that it almost isn’t there. In fact I didn’t even see it heading in that direction until nearly the end of the book. And there are a lot of questions on whether it’s actually a blooming romance or a product of something else.

I like how different Kali is between one day and the next. One day she’s fragile and human, and the next she feels no pain, heals when she’s been torn to pieces, and has blood that is poisonous to other preternatural (surprisingly in this story the word doesn’t make me want to punch something) creatures. And unlike most teen girls in supernatural books, she isn’t an idiot. Yeah, she does a lot of “I have to do this on my own…I’m going to save you no matter the danger….blah, blah, blah…” but she truly is so use to doing these things that it’s not stupidity, it’s just second nature to her.

The two problems I have with the book are 1) The time thing. A LOT happens in one day and it’s kind of too much in a way, and there are times that I’m honestly wondering if it would be possible, but I got over that quickly. 2) What mad scientist, who is doing secret experiments for the government – or some other covert entity- wouldn’t have cameras all over their freaking house and lab? Seriously! What is wrong with these mad scientists these days? Sheesh….I mean how many places do Kali and her friends go where they will learn all these secrets, and not one of these places has surveillance? That’s either a lot of hubris, or sheer stupidity.

But, again, I really liked this book and I’m kind of excited to see where it’s going to go in the next installment. The supernatural world that exists isn’t sweet and fluffy, it isn’t really all that sexy and mysterious, it’s just out and out nasty and that’s kind of fun.