#Review : Reaper by @LSMurphy

YA Paranormal

By L. S. Murphy

Synopsis:

There's no way sixteen year old Quincy Amarante will become the fifth grim reaper. None. Not over her shiny blue Mustang. Her Jimmy Choos. Or her dead body.

She’s supposed to enjoy her sophomore year, not learn about some freaky future Destiny says she has no choice but to fulfill.

It doesn’t take long for Quincy to realize the only way out of the game is to play along especially since Death can find her anyway, anywhere, anytime. And does.

Like when she’s reassuring her friends she wants nothing to do with former best friend Ben Moorland, who’s returned from god-knows-where, and fails. Miserably.

Instead of maintaining her coveted popularity status, Quincy’s goes down like the Titanic.
Maybe ... just maybe ... that’s okay.

It seems, perhaps, becoming a grim reaper isn’t just about the dead but more about a much needed shift in Quincy’s priorities—from who she thinks she wants to be to who she really is.

What a unique (to me anyway) morbid premise. I’ve read of MCs whose touch kills, but an MC who is an actual reaper??? Great idea, but you just know this story can’t end well.

Quincy is your typical high-schooler, but something happens during her sophomore year that changes her life. Majorly. She’s to become the 5^th grim reaper. It causes just a smidge of trouble for this girl to say the least.

I’ll preface this review by stating that most of my yuckies aren’t against the star rating. They’re things I personally found yucky, but were doubtless intentional by the author because of it being a YA.

Yummies: The first I’ll address is the character of Quincy. She's spot on. So much so that I didn’t care for her one bit. It really stinks when an author gets their characters so right that you don’t dare deduct stars just because you don’t like their … well, character! WELL done.

The ending. While you know nothing good can come from what Quincy is faced with, Ms. Murphy wraps this puppy up nicely. I was pleased, so that’s a huge plus as far as I’m concerned.

Her writing style is easy. Enjoyable. I had no troubles envisioning everything that transpired.

Yuckies: I have to mention the MC here. Couldn’t stand the chic. She’s your typical ‘I want to be popular & I’ll do anything to keep my status’ bitch that roamed the halls in my own high school. The popular snob and all her crappy attitudes toward friends, boys, and life in general drove me batty. I wanted to slap her. Seriously.

And speaking of HS, this story really had that setting / feel to it. It was so well done that I was back in school myself, wanting to (but never infiltrating) that popular crowd who loved to snub their noses any chance they got.

This started a bit slow for me because of these two yuckies. I wasn’t drawn in. Didn’t empathize whatsoever. Whenever this happens, it's a star deduction right off the bat. Regardless of the slew of yummies. 

Recommend: If you’re a YA fan & love to be transported back to those hypocritical high school days have at it. You’ll love it.