Review: The Naturals
‘When you changed one assumption, you changed everything.’
- Cassie
There is foreshadowing of plot twists but very very subtle. You have to read between the lines to actually get them before the plot twist reveal. Which I looove. I hate books that are so obvious with their plot twists, I mean the last foreshadowing of Lia for the first plot twist kinda got me, but it was good nevertheless! And really you have to think. It's not like the typical story you read on autopilot and still get the plot twist 'cause it was way too obvious. These plot twists are fresh!
The last plot twist was so crazy. It was like a double plot twist. And the first one I got it, but the second one? I was close but couldn't decide between two characters but they were alike so guess I theoretically also solved this one before we got the plot twist? But seriously this book deserves to be called; Having a shocking plot twist. As it was (at least for me) not that obvious as most books would do and it was more fun guessing. The plot twists are so cool!!
The whole story was facinating we also have no plot holes and everything gets explained (unless these French words which is a bit annoying). We also get explanations for the conclusion of each chatacters when they investigate. Everything made perfect sense, no stupid decions made by characters and it just felt so good. Good to read something like this in a while. We also had no flat characters and got LOTS of backstory. They are all so interesting and their quirks too (especially Sloan's!).
Lia is actually a useless natural 'cause detecting lies is not always possible. Especially with psychopaths. They have way higher dopamine levels in their brain and they lack any emotions or feelings that can hint/detect a lie. A lie detector is actually only an anxiety detector as people tend to get nervous when they lie as they are afraid to get caught lying. Psychopaths have a smaller amygdala, which is responsible for fear and anxiety and a reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), which is responsible for guilt, empathy, etc. Lia is supposed to detect lies from any individual which isn't possible as she can't detect any fear, facial expression changes, et cetera in a psychopath as they show NO remorse and NO fear. So if she is supposed to do it for a psychopath which also have a higher chance of murdering and even becoming serial killers, she would be quite useless.
The whole love triangle was so hard to read. Don't get me wrong, love triangles are actually one of my favourite tropes, BUT Michael just seemed so off and I just didn't like how he kinda played with Cassie's feelings.
I also was a bit annoyed by the fact that we got French and Italian words and even whole sentences but never a translation. That frustrated me a lot, for a book that explaines so much, but not this.
The ending was definitely amazing, but it felt a bit like an actual ending. Like not a 'sequel coming soon' ending. Just an end. And that was a bit of a let down. Like what is supposed to happen in the next book?
How it works: Only everything that is lower than 9 gets reduced from the final rating. Depending on how strong it inflicted the overall enjoyment of reading it affects differently.
Story 10 / 10
Characters 7 / 10
Triggering 0 / 10
Topic/Genre 10 / 10
Writing style 9 / 10
Grammatic and spelling 10 / 10
Personal enjoyment 8 / 10
Ending 5 / 10
Final Rating
4/5
I really had fun reading this book, I can only recommend it. Especially if you like murder mysteries as it reminded me of one strongly. It's also a series so you have more than enough story to read and perhaps fall in love with. Actually got this book recommended too, by someone who has this book as her favourite book and I can totally see why. So far not part of my 'favourite books' yet, but that might change.
20. July 2024
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