Brad About Books: Possess by Gretchen McNeil

POSSESS
Published: August 23, 2011
Publisher: Balzer + Bray (Harper)
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 379 pages
Source: Amazon.com

Rule #1: Do not show fear.
Rule #2: Do not show pity.
Rule #3: Do not engage.
Rule #4: Do not let your guard down.
Rule #5: They lie.

Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from. Literally. 

Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king.

POSSESS is a creepy and enthralling read that had one of the most shocking endings that I've ever read about!

I've never read a book about the "banishment" as our main protagonist Bridget likes to call it, so this was a first for me. And I really liked it! It had me on the edge of my seat for a ton of scenes (*cough* THE DOLL SCENE), and Gretchen McNeil accomplished putting goosebumps on my arms!

Let's just talk about the doll scene is POSSESS. That had to be one of the freakiest scenes I've ever read about. I highly recommend that you do not read that part of the book at nighttime, because it will freak you out beyond belief. 

The way that Gretchen McNeil crafted together her characters was really great. She put complex details into each characters while making sure that they had their flaws. Bridget was a kick-butt kind of character, but she complained a lot of the times that she didn't want this power (and to be honest, I wouldn't want it either). But I still really enjoyed every almost every character -- read the book to understand why I didn't like one specific character.

And the writing style was very scary. When Gretchen brings in the eerie voices, she wrote their dialogue in a such a way that made me a little bit frightened. And I'm not joking. Props to Gretchen McNeil for making a super scary book!

Overall, POSSESS was a very eerie and dark novel that had its moments of shocking events. Loved it!

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