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Friday 29 March 2013

Review: VIRALS

Virals by Kathy Reichs and Brendan Reichs
Book 1 of the Virals series
Read by Cristin Milioti
Genre: YA science fiction thriller
Format: paperback & audiobook

About Virals:
Fourteen-year-old Tory Brennan is as fascinated by bones and dead bodies as her famous aunt, acclaimed forensic anthropologist, Tempe Brennan. However living on a secluded island off Charleston in South Carolina there is not much opportunity to put her knowledge to the test. Until her and her ragbag group of technophile friends stumble across a shallow grave containing the remains of a girl who has been missing for over thirty years.

The question is, did whoever was responsible for the girl's death have anything to do with the sick puppy they rescued from a secret laboratory on the same island? With the cold-case murder suddenly hot, Tory realises that they are involved in something fatally dangerous. But events take a turn for the bizarre when they escape some would-be attackers by using physical powers more akin to a dog than a human... Could the puppy hold the key not only to the murder, but also the strange changes that are taking place in their bodies?

©2010 Brennan NextGen, LLC. (P)2013 Random House AudioGo
Source: Info in the About Virals was taken from http://www.audible.co.uk/pd?asin=B00AWSA7DU on 25/02/2013.

Review:
The reason I picked this book up was because I wanted to give Kathy Reichs another go after the disappointment with Deja Dead. And once again we see snarky and humorous remarks here that I liked about Deja Dead. In fact we see more of it here than there ever was in Deja Dead, so not a bad start. Not bad at all! I don't know whether that was Brendan Reichs' influence or Kathy Reichs just upped the humour. Or a combination of both. Either way, it brought this book's rating up a notch. By the way, speaking of Brendan Reichs, he is credited to be a co-author of this book and of this series by some sources but my paperback copy of this book does not mention him at all. Maybe later editions of this book bears his name and I must have bought an earlier edition or something. But it sure feels weird though that my book does not have his name in it. Whether or not it is Brendan's influence, this book has restored my faith in Kathy Reichs' work. Maybe Deja Dead was not her best and hopefully she improved as a writer as she wrote along, so I would read another of her work again.

Another thing good about this book is the narration. I like Cristin Milioti's voice. It sounds young and fits a YA book. The words are clear and the diction perfect. She also reads with her own brand of pizzazz which adds an enriching flavour to the listening experience! At the end of it, I enjoyed this book and looking forward to reading the next book in this series.

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 3
Pace = N/A (9 hrs and 41 mins of listening time)
Plot = 4
Narrator = 5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries

6 comments:

Tales of Whimsy said...

I'm so glad you liked this. I tried it once but couldn't get into it. Great review. :)

Blodeuedd said...

Sounds good :) They should make a tvseries of this one too

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