The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Series)

Based on her interest in criminal forensics and psychology, The Naturals is essentially the YA book version of Criminal Minds (TV), which author Ally Carter points out in her blurb. It’s a four-book series, with each book tackling a different mystery and an overall arc/central conflict spanning all four books.

My Thoughts on the Series Overall

Having read the entire series at this point, the series as a whole is about four out of five stars for me: thrilling, exciting, and unputdownable.

The Naturals was great, with a slower pace and more setup.

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Killer Instinct was better, and All In was best, where it hit its peak magnetism and stride.

In Bad Blood, it got significantly more complex (and occasionally muddled) to the point where I could feel a bit slow because the plot raced ahead of the readers’ ability to put together clues. That being said, the entire series was snappy, and I loved it. So intense!

Basically, I want to be an FBI profiler now. (2024 update: Jennifer Lynn Barnes finally reached massive commercial success with her The New York Times bestselling series The Inheritance Games, which was much deserved! I personally love this series more, but will share my thoughts on the other soon.)

To qualify this, I don't normally do well with grisly serial killer narratives.

I am not a big murder gal. I don’t love true crime, or serial killer documentaries. I don’t love mysteries that are too true to life. In terms of horror as a genre (which I love), I prefer eerie and moody to dark and gruesome: dark as an aesthetic rather than a psychological state.

My biggest regret is reading American Psycho and it is — to date — the only book that’s ever made me literally throw up. I will not link to it; I refuse.

I made the mistake last year of reading There’s Someone Inside Your House by Stephanie Perkins, whose previous series I loved. Perkins’s well-known contemporary book Anna and the French Kiss is often touted as a fluffy beach read and I've loved occasionally revisiting it throughout the years. It’s relatively straightforward but sweet — and takes place in Paris.

I wasn’t expecting her horror debut to be anything like her bubbly contemporaries, but I was shocked by how macabre and frankly disturbing her horror was. I’m glad I tried to read it, but it was not my cup of tea. I felt vaguely nauseous the whole time. Slashers are not my forte. (Also, the killer motivation seemed terrible and made no sense. The plot as a whole was scary, but so flat.)

Usually, I have a similar reaction to most serial killer books unless they promise atmosphere above all else. I can figure out who the killer is pretty quickly. A lot of the plots feel really similar. Furthermore, they’re just bleak to me.

The Naturals was a great segue into a different way of looking at these — through the lens of psychology rather than gore and shock factor. Having the story rooted in some more humanness tends to assuage some of my discomfort at reading some situations that obscure my sunny view of the world. I don’t mind reading about horrible things happening, but I do mind when the general conclusion of a book seems to be that it’s inevitable, that people are rotten at their core. Tracing it back behaviorally helps to at least trace why bad things happen.

But one of my college roommates always told me that I should have been a psych major, because it sneaks into nearly every conversation and makes up the bulk of my nonfiction reading list. She always told me to watch Criminal Minds (TV). After reading The Naturals, I was finally convinced and have been absolutely loving it. Right now, it’s my exercise show if I just opt for the elliptical. (2024 update: Several years later, Criminal Minds is the only show I've ever been able to watch almost to the end; normally, I lose interest and stamina after a couple of seasons, but my mama and I have maintained interest.) This book series is responsible.

THE NATURALS by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.

What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides—especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own. Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.

Soon, it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

The book starts out with a bang. Diner waitress Cassie is naturally profiling everyone as she serves them, until a patron exchanges some witty rapport and leaves an FBI calling card. Then she goes to her family home where she ultimately reflects on her lack of closeness to everyone around her and her mother’s mysterious murder, before deciding to join the Naturals.

Each of JLB’s books kind of has this formula. Each main character is a witty, smart, independent girl who’s learned early that she can only rely on herself through an unusual set of skills. One of her characters is a hacker, asked to be a cheerleader. One is a mechanic asked to be a debutante. Cassie is a waitress asked to be an FBI agent (or, at least, its precursor.)

I never mind the formula, because JLB is intelligent enough that although it relies on certain tried-and-true techniques, her books are always surprising. They always have one liners that make me laugh out loud, which is hard to do. They’re always intense, and cinematic, and have this delicious mix of angst and vividness and sharpness that makes them addictive.

(As a professor of the psychology of fiction, she cares a lot about making them addictive. Following her on socials provides access to lots of notes to herself to “let characters breathe” because readers inherently lend mystique and attraction to characters they can’t immediately know.) It’s more so that each book masters a specific set of ingredients, and the exact combination is always guaranteed to be both entertaining and slightly shocking.

I love whenever JLB introduces a cast of characters. They’re all characters in the sense that they’re nothing like actual people you would encounter anywhere other than fiction. They’re all funny together to the extent that you’re a little afraid of what they can do. They’re stock characters in that they each serve a purpose (the dark one, the neurotic one, the brash one) but I loved them.

Cassie is kind and smart and generally a pretty solid narrator. I had no real strong feelings towards her, nor towards her various romantic escapades and considerations, so more weight is definitely given to the plot and character quirks than to them really getting deep. I am totally fine with that considering the nature of the book, and don’t consider that a flaw.

Part of the book is written from the perspective of the Unsub: short, chilling chapters about his murders and plans. In those, JLB gets darker than she ever has before and creative in a way that’s a tad disturbing. They’re quite graphic, so keep that in mind!

The plot really got roaring, and was a damn good mystery. The suspense was engaging, and I ripped through the book so quickly. It’s detailed, intense, and expertly crafted — both as a writer and as someone who holds multiple degrees in psychology and neuroscience. Up until the very end, I didn’t guess the culprit, and that’s exactly what I needed.

Overall, the first book was a snappy and remarkably done beginning to a series that had a lot of potential for depth as well as striking twists, dialogue, and character conflicts. The overall premise (“teen FBI”) delivered, supplemented by writing and plotting talent. Generally, I think this is that type of book that would appeal across the board to many readers I know. Reluctant readers. Boys. Anyone who absentmindedly watches criminal dramas on TV.

The Rest of the Series

The later books are excellent too. I finished the series in about two days. My one hesitation with the series overall was that towards the third and fourth books, insights Cassie and her team got to started to feel convenient and out of the blue. Either JLB wasn’t translating the middle steps between clue no. 1 and clue no. 2, or I’m a dumbass and it went straight over my head. In these cases, clarity was sacrificed for subtlety, and it didn’t quite work, leaving me putting down the book to try to decide whether or not it was a clear path or I had just been stupid.

So some of the connections felt less like connections and more like desperate ways to bridge parts of the books and force them together. I think they needed to be more obviously linked in order to be fully convincing as a mystery and/or conspiracy. The entire plot of the third and fourth book was intense (!!!) but felt much more difficult to follow — a little too complex and convoluted. Still, JLB does a great job at making you care about everyone in the cast of characters, whipping up a sharp mystery, and having clever dialogue that had me in stitches. I’ll always read whatever she writes.

The first two books were my favorite. The second two were great, but less compelling for those reasons. Much messier. As a whole, I highly recommend the series and especially saving it for when you need to be persuaded to love reading again. The quick pace and all around checked boxes mean that it’s great at completely absorbing you and getting you hooked.

For fans of:

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin; I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter; The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes; Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead; Criminal Minds (TV); A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson; This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills; etc,.