Book Review: The Killing Jar

Title: The Killing Jar

Author: Jennifer Bosworth

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Age Group: Young Adult

Rating: 3 stars

Purchase: Amazon

Review copy provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“I try not to think about it, what I did to that boy.”

Seventeen-year-old Kenna Marsden has a secret.

She’s haunted by a violent tragedy she can’t explain. Kenna’s past has kept people—even her own mother—at a distance for years. Just when she finds a friend who loves her and life begins to improve, she’s plunged into a new nightmare. Her mom and twin sister are attacked, and the dark powers Kenna has struggled to suppress awaken with a vengeance.

On the heels of the assault, Kenna is exiled to a nearby commune, known as Eclipse, to live with a relative she never knew she had. There, she discovers an extraordinary new way of life as she learns who she really is, and the wonders she’s capable of. For the first time, she starts to feel like she belongs somewhere. That her terrible secret makes her beautiful and strong, not dangerous. But the longer she stays at Eclipse, the more she senses there is something malignant lurking underneath it all. And she begins to suspect that her new family has sinister plans for her…

The Killing Jar started out great, with a prologue that just about blew me away. But then…it went downhill fast. Kenna is an okay character, but she never really rises above okay status. She starts out strong, but then her personality sort of crumbles apart as the book progresses. She has so many questions, and understandably so…But she doesn’t do a whole lot to get answers. When something happens to her, she just lets her Mom take her to somewhere else, no questions asked. And she accepts her “new family” (I don’t want to give out any spoilers) right away, without any questions.

Also, the book doesn’t explain itself very well. I kind of understand what Eclipse is, how their gifts work,but I don’t know about their history. How did they come into being? Who created them? Who came up with the idea of doing this? Why does everyone follow Eclipse’s leader?

Kenna just felt really distant. Not just from her family, but from her best friend Blake too. As a reader, I couldn’t connect with her either. This is one of the rare novels in which I was it was fleshed out a little more, so that I could’ve connected with the characters better.  Also, Kenna’s personality should be more consistent. She went back and forth on whether or not she wanted to live with Eclipse about a dozen times.