Jasmyn - Review

Jasmyn *****

Alex Bell
2009

Jasmyn is what I would call an Urban Fairytale. But I don't think that's an official term in the book world. But I want to call it that, so I will. :) Really I think this is listed as a fantasy.

Jasmyn is about a young woman, named Jasmyn, who has recently lost her husband Liam. She is completely devastated by the his death, so devastated that she can barely cope. On top of this, for some reason, her mother-in-law can't seem to stand Jasmyn, and her brother-in-law (Ben) doesn't seem to like her much either. Everytime she speaks with him he treats her like...doodoo. Jasmyn is already self-concious because of her looks (she looks different than other people), so this is especially hard for her to handle.

Very odd things begin to happen - black swans fall out of the sky, dead, at her husbands funeral. Someone breaks into her house and trashes it. She sees an odd person at her grandparents house. There's more, but they would be spoilers. She slowly begins to come out of her grief a bit and starts to wonder what's going on. Jasmyn ends up having to team up with Ben to try to find something. She begins hearing things about Liam that she can't believe. Ben continues to treat her like she's dirt. Jasmyn begins to fight back. This is good.

The book begins with a slow build up - as you read you get a very good feel for Jasmyn's all emcompassing grief, and then you see her begin to come out of it. In fact, throughout the book, from beginning to end, you will find complete devastation about the death, to disbelief to rage and anger about why she was left with no husband.

As the build up of the story continues, every once in a while you get hit with a spooky happening, or something occurs that frightens Jasmyn. Until finally in the last section of the book all hell breaks loose.

I liked reading this book. I usually like more action in the novels I read, but I liked the way things were laid out here. I found a few times that things felt a bit repetitive, but those were examples of Jasmyn questioning what was happening. I tend to get impatient while reading lots of internal "thinking". Jasmyn is going about her business, thinking - thinking, wondering what is going on, then WHAM! something happens. Towards the end there is a pretty big reveal. Very dramatic. Very good ending - In fact I thought that the last section of the book totally kicked ass. Enough that I stayed up until 5 a.m. reading, and then as soon as I completely woke up this morning, I had to finish the book.

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