Scorch by Gina Damico

Genre:  YA Paranormal Fantasy

Croak Series, Book 2

Gina Damico's website

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Description (taken from Gina Damico's website):

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby is a teenage grim reaper with the bizarre ability to Damn souls. That makes her pretty scary, even to fellow Grims. But now Lex is a pariah in Croak, the little town she calls home. To escape the townspeople’s wrath, she and her friends embark on a wild road trip to DeMyse. Though this sparkling desert oasis is full of luxuries and amusements, it feels like a prison to Lex. Her best chance at escape would be to stop all the senseless violence that she caused—but how can she do that from DeMyse, where the Grims seem mysteriously oblivious to the bloodshed? 

This book didn't really have the feel of being a second novel in the beginning.  But once you hit the cliffhanger ending, you realize you've been strung all along into the typical second novel.  That was one issue for me.  My other issue was I had forgotten what happened in Croak, and this book didn't make it easy for me to remember.

We have the same witty characters you learned to love in Croak: Lex, Driggs, Uncle Mort, etc.  But the town's afraid and starts to revolt against them.  It's kind of a adults-against-teens fight, which I also didn't care for.  But we still see the same dark humor and sarcasm that we saw in the first book.  The only difference is they're constantly running away from the fight in this book.

Don't get me wrong, things do happen in this novel.  But for every little explanation you got, more questions came up.  And they finally stopped running towards the end, and what I thought was the real story came out.  But there was only twenty pages left which told me to expect the cliffhanger.  It still stunk though.  Mixed emotions on this one.

Challenges:  Paranormal Reading Challenge

Croak by Gina Damico

Genre:  YA Urban Fantasy

Croak Series, Book 1

Gina Damico's website

Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads

Description (taken from Gina Damico's website):

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby has sucker-punched her last classmate. Fed up with her punkish, wild behavior, her 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 that of shoveling manure.

He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach her the family business.

Lex quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated entirely by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. Along with her infuriating yet intriguing partner Driggs and a rockstar crew of fellow Grim apprentices, Lex is soon zapping her targets like a natural born Killer.

Yet her innate ability morphs into an unchecked desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she’s forced to Kill a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. So when people start to die—that is, people who aren’t supposed to be dying, people who have committed grievous crimes against the innocent—Lex’s curiosity is piqued. Her obsession grows as the bodies pile up, and a troubling question begins to swirl through her mind: if she succeeds in tracking down the murderer, will she stop the carnage—or will she ditch Croak and join in?

First off, let me say I loved seeing Lex's crazy-wild behavior.  The whole punch-first-talk-later idea was played well by Lex.  Not often do we see characters like these in young adult novels.  Granted I'm not saying violence is a good thing, but I knew plenty of violent teens that acted out at that age (I just might be one of them).  Totally new and different from other novels.

And grim reapers?  There's only been one other book I've read that involved reapers.  Honestly, I loved the world and the characters.  While the plot was very predictable, I feel Lex and Driggs brought out the humor.  And there's more than just humor in this novel.  Although I had a hard time slowing down and becoming serious again when the scene called for it.

An overall happy-go-lucky novel with a few real-world-seriousness kicks.  Any one who wants a one-of-a-kind paranormal read should try this one.  I'd definitely hand it to my tween sister to read.

Challenges:  Debut Author Challenge and Young Adult Reading Challenge