Review: Jenny Pox by J.L. Bryan

Jenny Pox
J.L. Bryan
Series: The Paranormals #1
Genre: Adult Horror
Released: July 22 2010
Source: Purchased
Rating: ★★★★★

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Eighteen-year-old Jenny Morton has a horrific secret: her touch spreads a deadly supernatural plague, the "Jenny pox." She lives by a single rule: Never touch anyone. A lifetime of avoiding any physical contact with others has made her isolated and painfully lonely in her small rural town.

Then she meets the one boy she can touch. Jenny feels herself falling for Seth...but if she's going to be with him, Jenny must learn to use the deadly pox inside her to confront his ruthless and manipulative girlfriend Ashleigh, who secretly wields the most dangerous power of all.

I've been wanting to read Jenny Pox for quite some time now and I've finally gotten round to reading it (hurray for being free on Kindle, even though I don't own one)! I love the cover of this book, it's so pretty! I love the colours used in the photograph (I'm a complete sucker for pretty colours).

Jenny Pox tells the story of eighteen-year-old Jenny Morton (nicknamed Jenny Mittens by people at school) who spreads a horrible disease through her touch. To prevent it, she wears gloves and long clothes that cover her skin while she is out, which she is mocked for by the horrible Ashleigh and her minions. Before reading the book, I had never heard of anything like Jenny Pox, the idea seemed incredibly unique to me, and it still is. I can't gush about the originality enough. One thing that I wasn't too keen on, was that there is quite a lot of filler material, which did become relevant as the story progressed.

As soon as the story starts, we are introduced to Jenny, who I just couldn't help but love. I wanted to give her the biggest hug ever because I could empathise with her (I can't spread a disease by touching people, but I have been taunted ad picked on - essentially bullied - for quite a chunk of my life). I loved seeing Jenny grow from the shy girl who just wants to be normal, to a strong young woman who embraces who she really is.

To me, Ashleigh was the perfect villain. She's malevolent, manipulative, sly, all those kind of adjectives that conjure up the image of a really nasty piece of work. I hated Ashleigh straight off the bat and as the story progressed I hated her more and more. Every time she talked about God or Jesus, I rolled my eyes and wanted to punch her; she's such a hypocrite!

Despite cheating on Asheligh with Jenny, which is not cool, I really liked Seth. He's such a nice guy, but Asheligh won't let him be nice, he has to fit her mould and be her pawn. Thankfully, he breaks free of Asheligh and shows who he really is. I liked getting to learn more about Seth and his creepy family history, it was very interesting.

I loved the small-town setting of Fallen Oak because everyone is connected in some way or another. I'm going to over-analyse like I always do because I think that the setting shows how people can turn against one another just from lies and stories that they heard from someone. No? Oh well...

I loved the gore of Jenny Pox, the descriptions of how the pox spreads were just so wonderfully macabre that the image of it stuck in my head. I love it when a book does that to me!

I loved every word of this book, it was just so amazing! I would never have guessed how the book ends, not in a million years. I would definitely recommend Jenny Pox to anyone who loves paranormal or horror books.