This "complete novel" is a compilation of previously released shorts. As shorts, each one tells a different story, some in a different setting entirely. As a novel they don't hang together cohesively, not even with the same main character in each.(Provided by publisher) ( )

Goodreads Synopsis: This is a complete novel/Omnibus Edition

The assignment:

Collect lifestones from humans after they die.

Rebellious, sixteen-year-old Naomi craves a normal life, but unfortunately, she’s a Grim by birth. That’s right, she sees dead people and hoards their living essence in a stone. Not a fun occupation.

In order to be good at her job, she must live among human teenagers for weeks at a time. But Naomi soon becomes attached to the kids she’s been assigned to watch over. And knowing that these teens are gonna die under less than ideal circumstances, she has the opportunity to prevent their deaths from occurring. Only one big problem—interfering with death is the worst crime a Grim can commit. If she intervenes, she’ll put herself and her family in danger.

Naomi must make the hardest choice of her career, go against the sacred covenant or watch her new friends walk blindly to their deaths.

Only one thing is for certain—Naomi has a grim knack for finding trouble and she’s about to break all the rules...

My Review: The first time I saw this book, I thought, wow that’s an awesome cover. So then I requested it. And then I forgot about it for a while, and then I requested it again. So basically I liked this book just from the cover enough to request it twice. Ah hem, lets move on. I wasn’t completely sold on the Grim Reaper side of the book, but I was willing to give it a shot. I’m glad I did. It’s an exciting story about a girl who is a reaper, and is sent on an assignment to collect the life stones of a school shooting. The grims basically live in a huge utopia, and that’s really cool. I never thought about there being more than one before. So when you’re an adult, you’re paired off with someone, like an arranged marriage. And then you have kids, and all the while completing these assignments to collect lifestones, which is how they can live forever. Outside of their utopia, is a town for the homeless, and then outside of that is where the banished grims, and the half humans go. I’m not too sure how that whole thing works, you know with the skeleton and the flesh, I’m just not going to go into it that far. Anyways. The banished grims and the half human grims are always trying to sneak in and steal the lifestones from the Grims, and they really don’t like that. So basically this is an awesome story to read. There were some times when I was like eh I’m not too sure about that, like when Bram was getting a tattoo and his ears “gauged” and “plugged” (like I have my ears stretched and I wear plugs in them but it’s really not good just to go in and get it done) and I mean that’s not a big issue but the author definitely could’ve just looked into it a little more. I’m just saying. It didn’t interfere with my thoughts on the book, just that that tiny little single paragraph could’ve been researched a little more. All in all, however, the book was awesome and I didn’t regret my choice to request it for a single second. Definitely check it out if you want something different to read. Thanks for reading!

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Roughly the first half of the book did not impress me. The idea of the grim reaper's trouble with basic collection jobs seemed like a very flat story, predictable, which picked up in the second half of the book. I find it a little unbelievable where love of family would be so key to Naomi's motivations, thinking she could focus some more on herself sometimes, but again the second half was an improvement.

There were a few typos as in any book that can be expected, however I believe (having recieved this novel through the Early Reviewer thing on this site) I somehow got the editor's version; there would be some occassions where the mistake or word strike-out would be typed in red so I suppose the writer would know to change it later.

The ending was very abrupt, making nothing definitive for any sort of conclusive feeling to wrap up the novel, though it left plenty of room to write from for what will be the second book, though I have no idea when this will come out. ( )