Book Review: Croak

Fed up with her wild behavior, sixteen-year-old Lex's parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape.
But Uncle Mort's true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He's a Grim Reaper. And he's going to teach Lex the family business.
She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. But Lex can't stop her desire for justice - or is it vengeance? - whenever she encounters a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again.
Will she ditch Croak and go rogue with her reaper skills?

I picked this one up from the library a while ago and just left it sitting on my shelf.  I had seen it in stores when it first came out and had been interested, but not enough to actually pick it up.  So seeing it in the library with that amazing cover I couldn't resist.

And it was great.  Reading it was like taking a breath of fresh air in a sense.  It's not a very heavy book- actually a rather quick read- and the writing, while a bit shaky at the beginning, was easy to fall into.  The story is very life and death, seeing as the main character is a Grim Reaper, after all, and there are parts where some of the squeamish readers may want to look away.  There wasn't much of a plot compared to other things I've been reading and watching (I've been binge watching Doctor Who so anything compared to that is pretty much a puny plot) but it was enjoyable.

The characters were... interesting.  But not in bad ways!  No, not in bad ways at all.  It takes about a chapter before you fall in love with Lex, and while I never really became attached to her family, through her I was able to like them enough that they mattered.  Mort was also another that I couldn't really connect with because I felt like we were missing a vital piece of information about him, that will hopefully be revealed later on in the series.  Driggs didn't take long to like, but I wouldn't say he's exactly swoon worthy, either.  All the junior reapers were likeable enough.  I must say while I was able to guess who the villain was (because there were really only two possibilities), figuring out how they did it was a surprise of sorts.

The mythology in the series isn't super new or exciting, but it's fun and an expansion on an idea that normally has to play second fiddle to a vampire or werewolf storyline.

Overall, I was very happy with this book, so I'm giving it 4 stars.