Review: Other by Karen Kincy

Release Date: July 1, 2010
Received From: Publisher
Age Group: Young Adult
Other Info: 2010 Debut Author Challenge
IBSN: 9780738719191
Blurb:
Seventeen-year-old Gwen hides a dangerous secret: she’s Other. Half-pooka, to be exact, thanks to the father she never met. Most Americans don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for Others, especially not the small-town folks of Klikamuks, Washington. As if this isn’t bad enough, Gwen’s on the brink of revealing her true identity to her long-time boyfriend, Zack, but she’s scared he’ll lump her with the likes of bloodthirsty vampires and feral werewolves.

When a pack of werewolves chooses the national forest behind Gwen’s home as their new territory, the tensions in Klikamuks escalate-into murder. It soon becomes clear a serial killer is methodically slaying Others. The police turn a blind eye, leaving Gwen to find the killer before the killer finds her. As she hunts for clues, she uncovers more Others living nearby than she ever expected. Like Tavian, a sexy Japanese fox-spirit who rivals Zack and challenges her to embrace her Otherness. Gwen must struggle with her own conflicted identity, learn who she can trust, and-most importantly-stay alive.

Gwen is an Other. She’s not ashamed of the fact, but she is scared to tell her uber religious boyfriend. He might dump her and she really doesn’t need to deal with that right now, because there werewolves in the forest and Others are turning up dead.

I really love the concept of the world created in Other. All the mythological creatures, or Others live among the humans. It’s a concept that is used a lot in adult urban fantasy, but not a lot in YA. You get to see all different types of Others, from centaurs, werewolves, tree and water spirits, and many more are mentioned.

On top of the fantastic world created, the story line was a little fluffy. The mystery was a bit predictable. I say a bit because I thought I knew who the killer was the whole story but it turned out to be someone else! But I still found other aspects to be very predictable.

Gwen was a good character. She was very naive and a little silly sometimes, but it wasn’t too irritating. My biggest problem was the flaw in logic when it came to the werewolves. One minute she  thought they were criminals her gave Others a bad name and if people were hunting them, oh well. The next minute she was following them around trying to help them. This went back and forth for quiet awhile. It didn’t make any sense to me. Maybe I missed something? I did really enjoy Tavian! He was swoon-worthy! Except he was so short! And Zack, who?

Overall, this was a fun fluffy read. Don’t go into it expecting to be swept away, but you will have a good time!