Unnatural Deeds by Cyn Balog (Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Also by this author: Unnatural Deeds
Published by Sourcebooks, Inc. on November 1st 2016
Genres: Social Themes, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 288
Secrets. Obsession. Murder. Victoria is about to discover just how dangerous it can be to lose yourself.
Victoria Zell doesn’t fit in, but she’s okay with that. All she needs is the company of her equally oddball boyfriend, Andrew. She doesn’t care what anyone else thinks…until magnetic, charming, mysterious Z comes into her life, and she starts lying to everyone she knows in an effort to unravel his secrets.
And then something terrible happens. Someone is dead and it’s time for Victoria to come clean. Interspersed with news clippings and police interviews, Victoria tells her story to Andrew, revealing her dark, horrible secrets…secrets that have finally come back to haunt her.
I’m always interested in a story that doesn’t necessarily fit the mold of anything else that it out there and I have to say, Unnatural Deeds by Cyn Balog definitely qualifies. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this book and I found myself unable to put it down because I needed to see what was really going on.
Victoria Zell has never fit in. When she starts a new year at high school, she expects it to be the same as last year. No friends and no one paying any attention to her. What she didn’t expect was Z, the new boy. I have to admit, this story was not what I was expecting and I really liked the way Balog set it up. The story is a mix of Vic’s letter to her boyfriend Andrew, news stories, and police interviews to get the reader to the one responsible for the death that is mentioned at the beginning of the book.
Vic was definitely an unreliable narrator and I was on the fence with her. She is the outsider in her school so it was easy to feel bad for her situation. She was the new kid and because Andrew is home schooled, they don’t see each other outside of their ritual of meeting at their spot by the fence. The relationship between these two characters is revealed via the letter she is writing but it soon becomes something more than just an introduction to what they are to each other. When Z is introduced, it becomes a confession.
Vic also outlines how her relationship with Z changed since the first day of school and it was clear she was more than a little obsessed with Z. At first I couldn’t really tell if Z was a bad influence or if there was something else going on and I have to say, having finished the book and getting an opportunity to read the police interview responses, it was hard to align the perception people had of Z with the things Vic tells in her story.
There isn’t much I can say about the actual story as I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone but every time I thought I had figured out what was going on, there was another twist with one of the characters. Balog did a fantastic job of setting up the story with the beginning because I was actually expecting this story to go a completely different way and the unexpected pieces were what kept me interested and turning the pages.
If you are looking for a book that has a twist and will keep you guessing until the very end, consider checking out Unnatural Deeds. It was a quick read and I thought Balog did a wonderful job of putting this story together.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy!
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