POSSESS by Gretchen McNeil

Today's featured read is POSSESS by Gretchen McNeil. And holy holy water, people, you've got to get your hands on this book. The cover is all sorts of shiny and gorgeous, but the words inside are the real treat.

Let's examine.

About POSSESS: Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her over-protective mom, by Matt Quinn, the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, the voices are demons—and Bridget possesses the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from. Literally.

Terrified to tell her friends or family about this new power, Bridget confides in San Francisco’s senior exorcist, Monsignor Renault. The monsignor enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession, but just as she is starting to come to terms with her freakish new role, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. And when one of her oldest friends is killed, Bridget realizes she’s in deeper than she ever thought possible. Now she must unlock the secret to the demons’ plan before someone else close to her winds up dead—or worse, the human vessel for a demon king.

Okay, I will freely admit that the premise of this book scares the socks off me. I am not what you'd call a horror fan, but mostly in the movie arena. I liked I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (Dan Wells) just fine.

And the reason is because I imagine in cartoons.

So I start reading POSSESS, and I just can't put it down! There are many things to be admired here, one of which is the way Gretchen can craft a story.

1. The voice: I have never read such an amazing voice. It's almost conversational, something I really like. (If you've read POSSESSION, you know this is true.) The voice is clever, and witty, and sarcastic, and just right. It compliments the character, as well as the plot, which is hard to do.

2. Bridget Liu: She's flawed, and I absolutely love that. Sometimes in books, you see a character that has problems they have to overcome. Everyone does. We can relate a little bit. But a character that is genuinely flawed is very hard to create and stay true to.

And Bridget is perfectly crafted in that way. She doesn't just have problems (which she actually has a plethora of those), but she's FLAWED.

And we as humans, are flawed. We work to overcome those things, and it's refreshing to find a character that isn't just overcoming problems, but she's overcoming flaws.

So there. Go get and read POSSESS. Imagine in cartoons if you have to. *wink* It's that good.

Check out what the other Bookanistas are up to this week at the Reading Room.

Or on their blogs:

• Christine Fonseca twirls for Audition
• Shannon Whitney Messenger is wowed by The White Assassin – with giveaway
• Shelli Johannes-Wells applauds The Pledge
• Beth Revis interviews The Girl of Fire & Thorns author Rae Carson
• Carolina Valdez Miller delves into The Future of Us – with signed book giveaway
• Shana Silver shouts out about Shut Out
• Sarah Frances Hardy fancies You Will Be My Friend