Um, yeah, I'm not quite sure what I just read. Part para-normal, fantasy, mystery, horror, coming of age, now I understand when Z told me it was weird but kind of good.

Kenna can take life just by touching. Creepy, right? When she was 10 she killed a boy. He was cruel and probably going to be a murderer himself, since liked to torture animals. Still--it was not the righting to do. Anyway--fast forward to now and after a near tragedy, in which Kenna does it again, she is shipped off to her grandmother's commune, to be with people like herself, so she can be fixed. Only that's not really what Grandma has in mind.

Lots of handwringing, wishy-washy decision non-making, finding out secrets, and the big reveal at the end, make me feel like this book is not for everyone. Some of my kids will like it, others will DNF it. ( )

Family politics abound and loyalties are tested in this engaging read. A creepy paranormal story rooted in a teen's desire to be normal. Great characters all around, but the Kalyptra were super fascinating individuals...albeit with a sinister undercurrent. ( )

I was looking for something a little different and this one fit the bill. It had a paranormal theme that I don't remember seeing before. I really liked the narration a lot and think that it added quite a bit to the story and I am really glad that I chose to listen to this story. This was never a book that totally sucked me in to the point that I didn't want to put it down but I did really enjoy in the end.

Kenna isn't like everyone else. She has a special ability that her mother has made her promise to keep a secret. She knows that it is very important that she never use her powers again after the unfortunate incident with the neighbor boy. Her family consists of her mother, herself, and her twin sister, who is in ill health. She is also very close to her neighbor, Blake.

Kenna's world is turned upside down when she comes home from an outing with Blake to find her mother and sister in a desperate situation. Kenna uses the abilities that she has tried so hard to keep secret in order to save the pair. In doing so, she does things that she didn't even know was possible and attracts a lot of attention. Her mother knows that Kenna will need outside help so she takes her to Eclipse.

Once Kenna arrives at Eclipse, the book takes on a different tone and instead of everything being unknown we start to learn some of what is really going on. The group at Eclipse seem like a type of cult and I was never really sure who Kenna should trust. There are a few twists and turns in the story as things progressed and the ending of the story proved to be very exciting.

I liked the characters in this story well enough. Kenna was a good character but she did drive me a little crazy with some of her thinking. Nothing that drove me too nuts or anything but I did wish that she would focus on what was really important. Blake was a great character and I wish that we had seen a little more of him in the story. He was a really great guy to Kenna. Her mother kept a lot of secrets from Kenna but she did seem to do so because she thought it was for the best. The characters at Eclipse added an element of the unknown to the story.

I really enjoyed Saskia Maarleveld's narration of this story. This is the first audiobook narrated by Ms. Maarleveld that I have had the chance to listen to but I would like to listen to her work again in the future. She really seemed to grasp Kenna's emotions and presented them well in the story. At times, her narration really added to the suspense of the story. I am pretty sure that I enjoyed this story a little more because of her narration.

I would recommend this to fans of YA paranormal stories. This story has a unique focus and everything is really wrapped up nicely. This is the first book by Jennifer Bosworth that I have read but I will definitely look for her work again.

I received an advance reader edition of this book from Dreamscape Media, LLC via Audiobook Jukebox for the purpose of providing an honest review. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: The Killing Jar is a dark, creepy, well written story about a girl with strange powers over life and death.

Opening Sentence: I try not to think about it, that time I killed a boy.

The Review:

The Killing Jar is perhaps one of the more strange/different stories that I have read in a while. If you’ve read the synopsis, you know going into this story that Kenna has already killed someone and then when you read how she describes a killing jar then you know it won’t be the last time she ends up killing someone. Also, there is a creepy vibe, especially to the first chapter when Kenna is recounting the story of her first kill. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of a young girl who at first seemed indifferent to the fact that she had killed a young boy. She definitely wasn’t indifferent to the choice that she made and she was able to play up the sympathetic aspect to a degree that I was able to accept and even feel sorry for her and the choice that she felt she was forced to make.

“You were just a kid,” he said. “You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“I did know,” I insisted. “He was bad. He made my sister suffer, so I decided to make him pay for it. It was murder, Blake, and it was intentional. I might as well have put Jason in a killing jar of my own. I am a killing jar, Blake. A living, breathing killing jar, and I almost put you inside, too.”

Kenna Marsden knows that she is different from other people. She can feel the life force of the people surrounding her. After she killed the boy, everything in her life changes. She manages to uphold a bunch of rules that she follows in order to keep herself from gathering the “force” that she needs. She follows a strict no touching rule which is really hard for her and the crush that she has towards her best friend, Blake.

After Kenna is forced to use her powers in a way that can no longer be hidden, her mother takes her to Eclipse in order to learn how to control what she can do. Kenna learns a lot about where her powers come from at Eclipse, but what she really learns at Eclipse is that she doesn’t know anything at all. Kenna learns that she is a Kalyptra and the commune is run by her grandmother Rebekah. At Eclipse, Kenna can’t help but feel like she isn’t getting the whole story but she is really enjoying her time finally fitting in somewhere where she doesn’t have to put a leash on her powers.

The Killing Jar is a well written story. The writing and mystery did help keep me hooked to the story. There are some slow moments but overall with all the annoying secrets to the story, I really wanted to know how the story was going to end. The beginning definitely had me hooked with how dark the story was portrayed. I wasn’t surprised how the story evolved, Kenna has always done everything to make her twin sister happy so I did see that aspect of the ending from the very beginning.

Kenna is a character that I really couldn’t connect with. I felt sorry for her in the beginning but as the story played out I didn’t really like the choices she made. I really didn’t like the host-cold feelings that she kept throwing out there to Blake and Cyrus. What I did enjoy about Kenna was that she did everything for her sickly twin sister. A lot of her choices where to keep her sister happy. (Possible SPOILER: Even though it was never mentioned, I do feel like Kenna managed to keep her sister alive with her powers even though she wasn’t doing it intentionally. The ending seems to contradict that but I really think that was how Erin stayed alive even though doctors kept saying she should have died at a young age.)

The paranormal aspect of this story is quite strange and different. I really liked that part of the story even though I did feel like something was still missing when the full story was finally told. The Kalyptra do have a crazy origin story which is definitely unlike anything I have read in a while.

There were two things that I did have a problem with in this story. The first was that there were so many secrets and Kenna didn’t fight harder to get the answers. She just let everyone be ambivalent. She was just too willing to let the issues go unanswered. (Part of this issue is resolved as to why she wasn’t getting her answers, but it was still a bit annoying, when I wanted her to fight harder to get her questions answered.)

“Who painted these?” I asked. “Was it Sunday?”

He nodded.

“When was that?”

He shrugged. “Long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Years and years. You know time doesn’t mean much to us.”

My other issue was the “love triangle” which to me wasn’t a love triangle. Kenna is in love with Blake but because of her powers, she won’t risk touching him. She goes to Eclipse and low and behold there is a really hot guy there, Cyrus. He just creeped me out from the beginning. My initial thought was that he could be her father, but when that was actually finally ruled out, all I could think of was how Eclipse follow the “free love” mentality. Then I began thinking about how Kenna’s mom and Cyrus had to have been together more than once when she lived there. Plus there was the whole age difference thing between Kenna and Cyrus that I just couldn’t get over.

I would highly recommend this story for the readers who want to read something a bit different. This story is a standalone but possibly could easily be made into a series. The ending was a bit predictable, but the events that led to the ending where what made this book enjoyable.

Notable Scene:

“What the detective said about that kid and his dad dying the same way…” He lowered his voice another octave. “Do you know how it happened? Did you… did you have something to do with it?”

“You need to leave now,’ I responded, my voice sounding flat and dead. “I can’t explain anything. Please, Blake, just do what I ask this one time and leave me alone.”

“But Kenna—“

I shoved my chair back and stood to face him. I dragged a breath down my throat. It was getting harder to breathe. My lungs were filling up with cement, hardening, and I was shivering so violently it felt like I would make the building shake.

“Just go! Leave me alone!” I ran from the cafeteria and didn’t look back to see if he was following me. I hoped he wasn’t, because a part of me hoped he was. A part of me wanted to get him alone and then let my aching, trembling, rebelling body have what it wanted. The rushing, throbbing, fluttering in my ears was so loud now it was like standing next to an industrial fan as its blades whacked at the air. I needed to be alone. I needed to be locked away somewhere safe. I needed to get out of this hospital before I did something terrible.

But I couldn’t think straight. The pain in my guts and the fever chills and the shuddering vibration in my ears drove away all rational thoughts. I wandered. I walked the halls. My vision blurred around the edges and turned gray in the center. The people I passed looked like ghosts, their faces chalky blurs. I kept my head down and tried not to see them because I knew that any of them could fix me. The life inside any one of them could end my agony. These people were walking bottles of medicine, living, breathing panaceas for my unique affliction. But the medicine I needed came at too steep a cost.

I was trapped. Trapped in a body that had become hostile territory, a private war zone, and I was the enemy under attack by my own cells. How long before I had no choice but to surrender and give them what they wanted?

FTC Advisory: Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan provided me with a copy of The Killing Jar. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )