Postcard For Reader

Other

Other
Author: Karen Kincy
Series: Other (#1)
Publisher: Flux
How Received: the lovely lovely publisher

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.
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I was very nervous going into it. See, Other got a lot of hype from my blogging friends. Almost everybody gave it a near perfect rating and practically demanded that I read it once it was in my possession.

It lived up to the hype.

First of all, let's start with the summary. I've been a STICKLER for summaries lately. If you're going to give me the end of the book in a summary, I'm not interested. If you even summarize halfway through the book, I'm sad. This? This is, like, first four chapters. It gives the general plot. And it is AWESOME.

And then there's the book itself. We start off brilliantly - Gwen shapeshifting, and having to deal with her need to do that. There's no slow beginning; there's no explanation of what she's doing. We're shown what's going on. We understand. And we're presented with this fantastic world where Others live with humans, and we meet more and more amazing Others, and it's beautifully crafted.

Then, of course, there are these characters. We have Gwen, who - yes, has a few occasional tear moments - but she's realistic. Is she a shape shifting half pooka? Sure! But I connected to her anyway. Yes, she has a half page breakdown at some point in the book with her pooka powers/murdering detective skills/just broke up with her boyfriend stress all coming to hit her at once. But she's snarky, and she's funny, and she knows how and when to laugh. Hell, she blogs. I like her.

And Tavian and Zack! We have Zack, her first boyfriend, who is pretty much my ideal guy. And Tavian, who comes along and is absolutely positively adorable and perfect for Gwen. And guess what? They're quirky and realistic.

I don't think I can overuse these two words in this review: realistic and connected. I CONNECTED to this story with REALISTIC characters that I absolutely adored. And it's so hard for me to say that characters are realistic in a freaking paranormal. But there you have it.

And - wow, this is becoming a long review - then, last but not least, is the plot. Yes, good characters and a great world can make up for a bad plot. But guess what? The plot was GREAT. The only thing I was certain of was that a werewolf wasn't the killer. I began to suspect closer to what the final thing was, but even then, I was surprised. It's hard to guess. You start leaning one way and then another and by the time you get to the end, you're on the same page as Gwen.

I'm going to wrap up this review before it gets to long, but just... wonderful. I mean, I was going to give this book a 9/10, and then I started writing the review and realized I sounded like an obsessed fangirl. And then I tried to figure out why it deserved a nine instead of a ten. And I couldn't think of any reason. Clearly, you're not going to like this if you're not into paranormal or any sort of fantasy.

But for those like me who are?

YES YES YES.

Overall Rating & Final Comments: 10/10. Fantastically created world, love the Others, and a realistic main character.
Cover Notes: I think this is one of my most favorite covers ever. It's true to the book, and absolutely gorgeous.
Sequel?: The sequel, Bloodborn, comes out in 2011. And I can't WAIT!