The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Book Review

 The Naturals 

(The Naturals #1)

By Jennifer Lynn Barnes 

Published Year: 2013

Page Count: 306 pages 

Medium Used: Paperback 

Genre: Thriller, Young Adult, Suspense,  Murder Mystery, Detectives, FBI, Intuition, Solving Murders, 2026-read. 

Rating : 5/5 😀😀😀😀😀

I usually read up every genre that falls under the banner of Fiction and never have I come across such a simplified yet complex, thrilling story. It is just structured and constructed differently. I felt really invested in diving into the psyche of the serial killer that was disrupting everyone's peace of mind. The author deftly took me through the motivation, needs and cause-effects of victims and the psychopath that was brutalizing them. I was enjoying the read while also learning something about the world of investigators and criminology. How cool is that!! I had committed to my memory important terms like MO, Signature, Victimology among others. I finished this book earlier than I thought. I just couldn't put it down. It felt really straightforward but I never saw the perp coming. Even when the identity of the perpetrator is revealed, the motive was a thrilling surprise. Damaged people inject more damage into the world. While we may not able to completely eradicate parental abuse, something has to be done to heal these damaged souls out there. I developed real strong feelings after reading this book about how easy victims of abuse fall themselves into the role of abuser. A very eye opening read. 

Cassie is a natural psychological profiler. She understands the behavior, personality, environment (BPE) of a person and uses it to predict how or what they would do given a situation. She could easily slip into their skins and know what motivates them. She is therefore a natural agent to work on cold cases for the FBI. She is a 17 yo teenager and there are four other teens who are naturals working from a remote location in Virginia for the FBI. They are - Dean, a natural profiler, Michael, a emotion reader, Lia, a lie detector, Sloane, a math and statistics genius. Dean is closed off and guarded while Michael conceals his emotions and true self. Both of them develop a shine for Cassie and though the romantic angle is not overly done, it added to the complexity and acted as a hook for some lightweight imagination. They eventually learn some dark secrets about Dean and also some devastating past experience of Cassie. She lost her mother when she was 12 and her mother's body was never found. Cassie was the one to discover the room smeared with blood and it is a cold case. The killer was never found. Initially, the naturals were trained on old cases and were prepared to handle cold cases from the past but an ongoing serial killer spree catches their attention. What starts out as an eerie interest in an ongoing case turns thrilling and pulse pounding as the perp targets Cassie and drops clues to figure their identity. The perp targets women who are red haired or act as psychic mediums .. both these traits belong to Cassie's mother. Also, Cassie herself is red haired and has a natural, raw talent. Which makes her a perfect next target.. 

I felt the ending was fitting and though it didn't solve the case of her mother's possible murder, it did bring to an end the wild ride of a copy cat, wanna be serial killer!