Review: Velveteen

Velveteen
By: Daniel Marks
Release Date: October 9, 2012
Series: Velveteen

Description:
Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.

The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.

Bonesaw.

Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days.

It’ll be brutal... and awesome.

But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.

Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules... or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her

Review:
This was an unusually interesting read, rather on the dark cynical strange side, but interesting none the less. The author took you into a world of Purgatory where souls were just like the living but then again not. It was dark, gray and ashy type of environment that just bought more of that dark cynicism to the story.

We meet Velveteen who was a victim in the living world of a serial killer; she periodically sneaks back into the world of the living and watches as her killer tortures more girls. Sometimes intervening to help if she can, but still all done in secrecy as it is against the rules to go back and haunt the living. There are many rules in this Purgatory, and rules are meant to be broken.

When her and her salvage team go back to investigate why there are more and more shadow quakes and to get rid of the source (usually someone who is possessed) they find a cell with a soul in it. Shattering it and releasing that soul brings forth a boy she wasn’t expecting. Someone she is attracted to and starts to mess with her mind and honestly her feelings because she’s never really felt like this, but of course it’s against the rules to be with a member of the same team.

Throughout the book there is word of an uprising and they are all in search of a rogue member of an old salvage team. It goes back and forth between the living and the dead and still the whole concept was really throwing me off a little. Could I imagine this place existed, maybe and maybe not? It was all very surreal. While this uprising was taking place Velvet and Nick were getting closer, all the while she would still sneak off to see her killer. I know this book was described more like a girl with revenge, sure revenge took place but I don’t think it was the main focal point.

I think that Nick was a very much likeable character and Velvet in her own way was also likeable. The book was interesting but took me a while to read. I just couldn’t get into it as much as I wanted to, and believe me I did. Overall the book was good, would I read the second one? I don’t know maybe just to see where Velvet is but I really thought this book could be more of a standalone, there was a beginning a middle and an ending which I thought ended well enough for me.

The cover is nice; I can totally see Velvet and her special guy there, although in the book he's wearing a basketball jersey the majority of the time so that would have been nice to see also her boots she keeps talking about. What will come next for this salvage team?

Disclaimer:
I received this book from NetGalley and Random House, so that I may give my honest opinion and a review. Whether it is good or not please do not let it discourage you from purchasing/reading the book yourself and forming your own opinion. What might be good for me may not be good for you and vice versa. With that said, Happy Reading Everyone!!!