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• This is my personal blog and I plan to use it to post reviews of the books I've read and hopefully have conversations with some of you about your book tastes and maybe even get some recommendations.

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• I live in a small rural town in Canada.
• I've been published by Polar Expressions Publishing in two of their youth poetry editions.
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• I skipped Grade One.
• I volunteer at my local library and coach as well as ref my local youth soccer teams. 

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Review: Feral by Holly Schindle

Date Started: June 4th 2015
Date Finished: June 6th 2015
Published by: HarperTeen on August 26th 2014
Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller
Format: Hardcover
Source: Local library

Summary: It’s too late for you. You’re dead. Those words continue to haunt Claire Cain months after she barely survived a brutal beating in Chicago. So when her father is offered a job in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out will offer her a way to start anew.

But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire feels an overwhelming sense of danger, and her fears are confirmed when she discovers the body of a popular high school student in the icy woods behind the school, surrounded by the town’s feral cats. While everyone is quick to say it was an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it, and vows to learn the truth about what happened. 

But the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to realizing a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley….  Source: Goodreads

Review: This book had me feeling insanely spooked by the first paragraph with the whole Peculiar, Missouri setting and the oh-so cliche dark and stormy hail episode that had me knowing something terrible was about to happen. We meet Serena- a high school girl who by the second page we discover is dead, yet still feeling quite alive in a paralyzed sort of way. The concept of the book being told from a spirit's perspective was gripping and exciting, and made the beginning of the book very mysterious. I wish we would've had more of an opportunity to approach the book from this type of point of view. 

The second character that comes into view is Claire Cain, who has coincidentally moved into the dead girl's house with her professor Dad, and had her own brushes with death as well. Claire was not much of a strong character, despite having overcome a vicious assault, and I found it hard to relate with her in any way. She seemed to always be brushing off her own emotions to make herself appear brave, but I found this just made her seem emotionless and dull.

The hook for me was the entire mystery of how Serena died and why. I think the author does a good job of using the girls' intertwining experiences to help play out how Serena's death occured, and while she did get boring at times, I loved how Claire was able to discover some of Peculiar's most hidden secrets. 

The reason for the title of this book and probably my least favorite thing about the book were the feral cats that roamed the town. It seemed as though every other sentence, there was a stray cat and the grotesque behavior of the feline gangs was unexpected and seemed unnecessary, although the role of one of the cats "Sweet Pea" was interesting.

There was no romantic relationship that evolved with the main character, which at times was annoying because I'm always a sucker for a good love story, but I think it would've tainted the spooky vibe of the book and there were plenty of relationships that were being brought up with minor characters anyway. 

Overall, I feel conflicted. I loved where the book was going with the paranormal side of things and I think it would've been more interesting to see the side of "Peculiar" that was a little more peculiar. We saw glimpses of this when we get Serena's perspective and Claire's "paranormal episodes" were very well written, though few and far in between. I think the book lacked emotion from the characters but the writing style was clear and easy to follow, though a little bit out there at times. I think the ending came together nicely, and definitely cleared up ALLLL of those questions that had been accumulated throughout the reading experience, like who did what and why so-and-so was acting like they were. 

I decided to give this book four stars because there were spooky and gory aspects of it that I really enjoyed and I think the ending did a great job of summing everything up, but I didn't connect with any of the characters and I think the writing lacked emotion at times.