Review: Feral

 

Title: Feral

Author: Holly Schindler

Release date:  August 26th 2014              

Publisher: HarperTeen 

The Lovely Bones meets Black Swan in this haunting psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you question everything you think you know.
It’s too late for you. You’re dead. Those words continue to haunt Claire Cain months after she barely survived a brutal beating in Chicago. So when her father is offered a job in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out will offer her a way to start anew.

But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire feels an overwhelming sense of danger, and her fears are confirmed when she discovers the body of a popular high school student in the icy woods behind the school, surrounded by the town’s feral cats. While everyone is quick to say it was an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it, and vows to learn the truth about what happened. But the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to realizing a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley….

Holly Schindler’s gripping story is filled with heart-stopping twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very last page

Oh Feral, what am I going to do with you? On one hand you were crazy and weird and pretty much what I love about these types of books. But then on the other hand, it was not at all where I wanted or thought it would go. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing it just really had this big build up that kept you guessing what was going on that by the time it was revealed it deflated.

It had started off really strong, and it hooked me straight from that first Serena chapter, her body being dragged through the woods. But of course Serena isn't our MC, but Claire, who has just came into town with her father as a fresh start because of what happened to her at her old school, and it's pretty brutal, what happened, and it haunts her when she sleeps as well while she's awake. She starts a new school, makes a new friend, and an unwanted one in Becca, Serena's 'best' friend, who tries pushing herself on Claire in a weird way. Then Serena's body is found in the woods.

What you'd think the main plot of Feral would be the mystery of who killed Serena, is in fact, not the main plot, more of a sub plot, and that's what I was disappointed in. We were getting clues and things were going a whole lot crazy and I had suspects, and I was waiting for this amazing twist in the murder, and got nothing. We get a twist alright,  but by then, a little over 60% in, when it got a little too crazy, I knew what was happening. Our main plot. Don't get me wrong, it's a great way of showing how bad and strong Spoiler, seriously. Do not highlight because it was spoil everything (PTSD) can really be, but what you're shown and think is paranormal...suddenly just isn't.

It's written in third person, which really worked for me with it, for once. If it was in first person, it would be a whole different story, because paired alongside with the creepy intense scenes, it made it all that more eerie and it flowed really well. It's just a shame about some of the characters.

Claire was the type of character you want to hug and slap at the same time. She kept going on and on about how she missed the way her old friend was with her before what happened, yet she wouldn't answer her calls or her texts, or her emails. She kept going on how her friend had changed so much, that she was treating her differently, when it was Claire herself thinking that, she was the one who had changed, she was the one who was treating herself differently. I get why, I do, especially because of what happened to her, but no matter how hard she tried, things weren't going back to normal- and things would never feel normal if she didn't deal with it. Blaming others was her way of dealing and she just didn't see it. But, I guess without that, this book would be non-existent, and that's why I don't think having that worked with Feral, for me.

Feral turned out to be completely different than I expected it, and this time, not for the better. I just think while the two plots did tie up nicely together, for that 90%, when you look back over it, they really clashed.

Rating: 3/5