Review: Other

(Can't get any pictures to work at the moment! :( Sorry!)

Title: Other (Other, #1)

Author: Karen Kincy

Publisher: Flux

Pages: 336

Rating: 2.5/5

Summary from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Gwen hides a dangerous secret: she’s Other. Half-pooka, to be exact, thanks to the father she never met. Most Americans don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for Others, especially not the small-town folks of Klikamuks, Washington. As if this isn’t bad enough, Gwen’s on the brink of revealing her true identity to her long-time boyfriend, Zack, but she’s scared he’ll lump her with the likes of bloodthirsty vampires and feral werewolves.

When a pack of werewolves chooses the national forest behind Gwen’s home as their new territory, the tensions in Klikamuks escalate-into murder. It soon becomes clear a serial killer is methodically slaying Others. The police turn a blind eye, leaving Gwen to find the killer before the killer finds her. As she hunts for clues, she uncovers more Others living nearby than she ever expected. Like Tavian, a sexy Japanese fox-spirit who rivals Zack and challenges her to embrace her Otherness. Gwen must struggle with her own conflicted identity, learn who she can trust, and-most importantly-stay alive.

It's been a bit since I read this book so I'm going to make this short and sweet and to the point.

Other was an okay book. It didn't quite live up my expectations. I feel that the characters weren't bad but they weren't extraordinary or memorable. The main character, Gwen struggled with her identity as an Other throughout the book and showed extreme hypocriteness (not a real word but I'm going with it). This did, however, make for an interesting inner struggle to follow as she had to accept who she was and not what other people wanted her to be. Tavian, her partner in crime (not real crime, it's just a saying!), was short. I know, I know, height has nothing do with a character but it just bothered me. It's one thing if he's short and so was she but he was significantly shorter than her! (Sorry I'm 5' 10" and extremely height obsessed so you all can just disregard the last two sentences. I just wanted to put it out there!)

The plot was just alright. I liked the idea of it, but that's probably because I've seen it before. It really wasn't all that original, the idea of someone going around and killing Others because they weren't human. It's just over done. Also, I feel there needed to be more action! She's a SHAPE SHIFTER, there could have been some really cool action scenes I think. The end however, was extremely well written and I really enjoyed it. I was surprised by who the killer was but at the same time I wasn't. It made sense but it wasn't obvious. You get what I'm saying? Hopefully, because I don't know how to say that any better.

The writing was very simple. It's definitely a book that would easily work for the younger part of young adult. I actually found it maybe too simple? But, sometimes simple is nice. It's not a long, hard read. Definitely a book you can relax with!

Overall, the book was simple (not sure if that's good or bad, it's up to the reader), had a kind of unoriginal plot, and only okay characters. It really didn't live up to the expectations I had for it. The end was well written though so I probably will continue the series because I like an author who knows how to end a book!

Not quite as short as I thought this was gonna be! Guess I remembered more than I thought! :)