Review: Croak by Gina Damico

Croak
Author: Gina Damico
Release Date: March 20, 2012
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Croak Book #1
ISBN:  0547608322
ISBN13: 9780547608327
Genre: Young Adult
Review Copy Source: Netgalley/Teen Book Scene

Teenage delinquent Lex's parents ship her off to her uncle's house for the summer, where she discovers a surprising family business as a grim reaper and gets caught up in a mystery, in the first installment of a morbidly hilarious new series.

CROAK is a little town in the middle of no where that cheats tourists out of money, names their establishments after death and oh yeah, all of its residents are grim reapers. Lately Lex has been getting into trouble and her parents send her off with her Uncle Mot for the summer. She quickly realizes that her Uncle is not who she always thought he was and she is following in his footsteps. 

Lex really had no clue as to why she was suddenly getting into so much trouble. Her temper was all over the place, she would hit people for no reason and argue with everyone. When her parents told her she was going to her Uncles for the summer she was angry and a little scared that she was going to have to leave her twin sister behind. Lex quickly fell into her new role as a grim reaper and jumped into new friendships and situations. I enjoyed all the other teen grim reapers and it was interesting to learn about the different roles they played. Everyone but Lex comes from tragedy somehow and that makes Lex a bit different from them. From the beginning she can do things that no one else can and that plays a big role in the events of CROAK.

There was a great amount of humor, complex characters and an interesting town that was fun to navigate. The world building was neat. The Grim's source of travel and power was unique. There were a few slow parts but they in no way took away any of my interest in the story. The events at the end of CROAK were a bit easy to predict. I know it will play a huge role in the events of book 2. I have a few theories on why Lex is how she is that I'm hoping will be revealed quickly so I'm excited to get a hold of SCORCH to see if I'm right. 

I gave it 4/5 stars