Book Review - Jenny Pox by J. L. Bryan

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.

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Not recommended for readers under eighteen

Jenny Pox by J.L. Bryan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What in the world did I just read? Really? What in the heck did I just read?

The story starts out moderately ok when you start to get to know the main character by the name of Jenny. We find out that this poor girl was born with the curse of a plague at her touch. Her mother was killed when giving birth to the poor girl, along with the the doctors and nurses that were there at the time. She seems to be cursed by this and can't see a silver lining to anything.

She's spent her whole life trying to protect those around her from her curse by wearing clothing that covers as much of her body as possible, wearing gloves and staying out of the lime light as much as possible while trying to survive high school. But that all changes her senior year when the popular Ashleigh's boyfriend begins to befriend her.

Then we're thrown into a whole wild ride of Jenny learning about Ashleigh's boyfriend's gift and then Ashleigh's. Finding romance with the one person that isn't harmed by her touch sends Jenny into a spiral of events that leaves several of the town girls pregnant and more than half the town dead.

Ashleigh turns out to be one of those sociopathic characters that you love to see get their comeuppance. She deserves every horrible thing thrown at her for every character she manipulated within the story and with how she handled everything. I actually cheered when she got what she deserved.

But after that I was confused. I mean.... what? Again, what did I just read? Past lives? Dead coming back to life? Whaaaat?

All in all it was an ok book. I'm glad I was able to get it borrowed because I don't think I would have wanted to own it. And the rating definitely should have been 18 years or older. Not just classified with a YA.

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