Indie Book Review: JENNY POX by J.L. Bryan

Although I am getting ahead of myself, since I had read a number of self-published titles before snagging Jenny Pox at the recommendation of Amanda Hocking's blog, I decided to debut my book reviews on this here blog with Jenny Pox because I just thought it was so, so amazing.

Here is the Jenny Pox book blurb from Goodreads:

Jenny has a secret. Her touch spreads a supernatural plague. 

She devotes her life to avoiding contact with people, until her senior year of high school, when she meets the one boy she can touch, and she falls in love. 

But there's a problem--he's under the spell of his devious girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all. 

Now Jenny must learn to use the deadly "Jenny pox" she's fought her entire life to hide, or be destroyed by Ashleigh's ruthless plans. 
 *Not recommended for readers under sixteen due to mature content. 

Now, when I first purchased this book to read on my iPhone (I do pretty much all of my digital reading on Kindle for iPhone these days, heh) I didn't expect very much. I thought it was going to primarily be a teenage love story gone bad because of some supernatural touch and a "curse" from this devious Ashleigh character - but I was way off the mark on my assumption.

Now, I'm not going to lie and tell you that I am a good book reviewer. I never have been good at summing up a person's work in a few paragraphs, and I won't do that because I am sure any readers can find more "literary" reviews elsewhere - but I am going to tell you what I think matters most - the reasons I think this book was so special and why I so highly recommend it.

I have read a lot of young adult paranormal romances lately, and I will let you know up front that although Jenny Pox is marketed towards the YA group, I do not consider this to be a young adult novel. The author, J.L. Bryan, makes a note that this isn't recommended for readers under 16, and parents should use their discretion if they have any control over the books their teens read. Jenny Pox is a book about teenagers, teenagers with supernatural powers to be sure, but teenagers nonetheless. They face, along with strange plagues and superpowers, some really strong themes like parental death, emotional abuse, alcoholism, drug use, bullying, rape, and sex. Really, these are issues that all teens face nowadays, but it was exceedingly refreshing to see them laid out so matter-of-factly in a book marketed toward teens.

More than anything, it was the lead characters, Jenny and Seth (and Ashleigh, she was fun to hate) that made this book stand out for me. These were the two strongest and the most real characters I have read in young adult fiction in, well, as long as I can remember. It was Bryan's portrayal of them, showing their weaknesses and desires as well as their strengths, that drew me in. These characters had intense sexual encounters, the kind I remember as being so unbelievably exciting as a teen, they smoke marijuana (Gasp! Illegal drugs in YA fiction!? How dare J.L Bryan write about something so many teens actually do but mainstream media is too afraid to talk about it...), and, well, Jenny may be a strong character but she doesn't have 100% control of her powers yet and that leads to some intense, gory situations.

It's obvious that Bryan spent long, hard hours developing and loving his characters, enough that we could fall in love with them too. His writing, his sweeping character development, reminded me a lot of early Stephen King novels, and I'm not hard pressed to say that Jenny Pox is Carrie of the new generation, in more ways than one.

You'll like Jenny Pox if you like reading about real teens facing real problems with big twist of supernatural power to amp up the story. This book, although long, reads like a whirlwind - you will not be able to put it down. And then, when unfortunately it comes to an end, you will be happy to know that its sequel has already been released - Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) - picks up right where Jenny Pox leaves off (sort of) and is just as action packed as Jenny Pox. I'm currently wishing I hadn't devoured the first two books of the Jenny series so quickly, because now we have to wait until fall for J.L. Bryan to release his next kick-ass book.

You can purchase Jenny Pox by clicking this link here: Jenny Pox (Jenny Pox #1) or at the widget above, and please stop by the author  J.L. Bryan's blog, and follow him on Twitter: @JLBryanBooks

My rating of Jenny Pox?
5/5 Bright Shining Stars.