The Naturals

I'll start by saying mystery/crime procedural isn't really my jam, so I know I'm not the target audience for this book. I read it with an eye toward maybe booktalking it to the local junior high kids, since mysteries/MURDER are very popular with them, and some reviews recommended this for grades 7-9. I'm ultimately NOT going to booktalk it–I definitely do think a lot of kids in that age range would enjoy that, and most of them probably wouldn't be too shocked by it, given other media they're exposed to. BUT this is a book about profilers of serial killers, and they talk about serial killers & sexual assault, and I'm just... choosing not to promote this to every junior high kid.

I think the concept–teens who are Natural profilers/lie detectors/emotion readers/whatever are collected by the FBI and sent to live in a training house that's kind of like an un-televised Real World situation–is cool if implausible, and a lot of teens would be into it.

Some teens might like the love triangle? For me, aside from being a little ~over~ love triangles, as many are these days, I was also confused by this one because I could NOT tell the two boys apart and I kept forgetting which one of them was supposed to be the ~bad boy~? Like, they are both broody FBI profilers-in-training.

Overall, a fast, enjoyable mystery (I def did not predict the ending!) and like I said–not my genre. If you (or your teens) are into mystery/procedural you'll probably like this more.