Middle Grade Book Review | FINDERS REAPERS by Anna Staniszewski

Title: FINDERS REAPERS (Part of the Switched at First Kiss series)
Genre: Middle Grade
Author: Anna Staniszewski
Rating: 4.5 stars

SUMMARY:

Marcus is a Cupid. Lena is a Reaper. Opposites attract in book 2 of the adorkable Switched At First Kiss series by the acclaimed author of The Dirt Diary.

Lena's not ready for any more supernatural surprises. Her new boyfriend, Marcus, is a cupid. She's a soul collector ("reaper" just sound so harsh). And they just got their powers un-swapped. But things aren't as back to "normal" as they seem...

On his next assignment, Marcus's "love boost" is a little too powerful. (Baby talk is so annoying.) And Lena's soul sort of...escapes. The cause? Lena and Marcus's powers are still intertwined! Their emotions are affecting each other's power. So, basically the fate of the world depends on them getting along in their brand new romance. (Okay, just love and death, but still.)

No pressure, right?

REVIEW:

First off, let me just be clear about something: I am a big Anna Staniszewski fan. I love her stories. Full of heart and age-appropriate drama, but also super fun and quick. I can whip through one of Anna's books in a day or two. Pretty much anything you'll read by her, I think you'll love.

Okay, that's that. Now, about FINDERS REAPERS ... (And that title, tho! So. Cute!) :-)

This is the second book in the Switched at First Kiss series. I haven't read Book One yet (I'M WITH CUPID), because I wanted to see if reading the series out of order would be confusing (this was basically research for the author in me. I generally don't make a habit of this). I'm happy to say that the author does a great job catching us up on what happened in Book One (the necessities like who the main characters are, how they know each other, and the main conflict) without info-dumping (writer-speak for telling you everything at once, rather than integrating the pertinent details seamlessly into the story).

Marcus and Lena are relatively normal kids, aside from their superpowers, and they're dealing with things like parents, classmates, bullies, goals, and, of course, First Love. They are super cute together and you can definitely feel their chemistry. (Although I will say that it was a little hard to buy how SERIOUS they are about each other - I mean, I know kids that age easily fall silly in love, but M & L's whole meant-to-be vibe felt a little old to me. If these characters were older teens, I wouldn't bat a blue-gray eye over this, but these characters are in middle school so it was kind of hard not to raise an eyebrow.)

Still, the story was fun and I breezed through it just like all of Anna's books. It's full of heart, the peripheral characters were all very well developed, and I definitely laughed a lot. Plus, the world-building that's been done for this series is just awesome. It totally makes me want to have a cool super power like Marcus and Lena! I'm looking forward to going back to Book One, and you can bet I'll read whatever comes after this one, too. I wholly recommend this book for adults who like Kid Lit and for mature fifth-graders on up.

Final rating? 4.5 stars!

Keep 'em coming, Ms. Staniszewski!

Reviewer's Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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