Gwen Reaper

by Jaz Primo

[Angie]

Gwen Reaper was a pretty cute and fun little story. Scott is moving with his family from the city to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. He's taking the move in stride, and then he sees a girl and...an alligator! Of course, Scott is immediately entranced with this strange girl, whom he later learns is named Gwen and she's pretty much an outcast. Despite warnings from his classmates, Scott pursues Gwen and they start a rather cute relationship as he brings her out of her shell.

The first part of Gwen Reaper had me a bit nervous. The story was quite slow, and Gwen didn't come across as strange or weird to me. She's just a loner who prefers to read in the corner than be part of the crowd. It isn't until about halfway in when we learn of her ability and why it's caused her to withdraw from society. Then there were two things that really annoyed me, but were luckily dropped as the plot picked up. First: all of the song references. For whatever reason, whenever a song was playing the author felt the need to tell us the title and artist. This got annoying fast. Second: football. There are whole long sections with details as Scott plays football. I really don't care! Ironically, I happened to read this on Super Bowl Sunday.

Aside from those complains, I did enjoy Gwen Reaper. The title does give us an idea about "what" Gwen is, but I found the details to be really interesting. It's a simple explanation, but one that I thought worked well for the story. There's also an added suspense plot as Gwen is stalked and harassed by a mystery person. It's actually quite obvious who it is, but I couldn't wait for them to be revealed and see what Gwen was going to do about it. Her growing relationship with Scott was also sweet to watch, as he's there for her through all of this and tries to get her to be more social and less hard on herself.

In the end, I really liked Gwen Reaper. It's a quick read, and well worth it. The beginning is a bit rough, but by the end I had gotten into it.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.