Velveteen by Daniel Marks

Hardcover: 450 pages

• Publisher: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers (9 Oct 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038574224X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385742245
• Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem.
  
  The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.
  
  Bonesaw.
  
  Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days. 
  
  It’ll be brutal... and awesome.
  
  But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.
  
  Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules... or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.
• Cover:  I love this cover.  It's creepy and pretty at the same time.  The gray ash is relevant, and the girl is a great match for the protagonist Velveteen.  Not so sure on the guy being suited to Nick though.
• Being part of the book tube community, I follow Daniel Marks and love his videos.  His dark, sardonic humour never fails to make me laugh.  So everyone in the book tube community have been eagerly awaiting this release.
• The plot of a murdered girl taking revenge on her killer drew me straight away!  Completely different to anything else that I have on my shelves.  The idea that it's part YA Horror after reading and thoroughly enjoying another YA Horror called Anna Dressed In Blood definitely made me want to read it even more.
• However I think the synopsis is slightly misleading.  The synopsis gives the impression the book is all about Velveteen getting brutal revenge on her killer, but really that only made up a fraction of the plot.  The majority of the book is about a revolution in Purgatory.  
• The first two chapters really drew me in, being introduced to Bonesaw and Velveteen, but then the next 200 pages really slowed down.  It got to the point where I didn't really care about Purgatory at all.  
• The parts with Bonesaw were definitely more intense, and drew me in, it was just a shame they were so few and far between.
• The romance, I enjoyed but it kinda came out of nowhere.  One minute she hates him, the next she full on loves the guy.  Far too insta-love/lust.  Making out just a couple of hours after they first meet.
• From what we learn of Velveteen, how tough she is, how non-dependent, not very emotional- this seemed to really jar with her character.
• Nick was a really sweet, funny guy and I liked that he was a contrast to Velvet.
• I loved the really dark yet comic writing style.  I think that after watching Danny Marks's youtube videos, you really see a lot of his personality transferred onto the page, which was a pleasure to see.
• I found the writing style a little confusing at times, and often had to re-read sentences to try and figure out what was going on.  I also got tired of reading the word 'undulations' goodness knows how many times.  The amount of description slowed down a lot of the action scenes until they just came across as long winded.
• I didn't really 'get' Purgatory either...I was confused.  I also didn't get how Velveteen's 'salvage' team were beating a record at the number of 57...that just somehow seemed laughable and kind of lame.
• The world building also left me confused, for example "Time was a strange thing when you were living in the same city as people who’d died hundreds of years ago and yesterday," but we never really see examples of this, it's just randomly, suddenly THERE.  Even the characters didn't know if there was Heaven or Hell so...what am I supposed to do with that? 
• In conclusion some elements of this book I seriously loved- namely Bonesaw and Velveteen getting revenge, but I wish this had been the focus, and not Purgatory.  At the end I still have some unanswered questions and hope there is a sequel to clear them up.
• I give this 3/5 stars.  At times I loved it, but sometimes I was forcing myself to pick up the book and read.  I can't lie, I was so excited for this book and in the end it wasn't what I was expecting and I was left feeling a tad disappointed.  But to be clear I didn't hate it.