Review: Naomi Grim

Naomi Grim by V.B. Marlowe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of NAOMI GRIM by V. B. Marlowe

NAOMI GRIM is an immensely absorbing novel, and I would like to see it expand into a series. Naomi, the Protagonist, is something else—quite literally. She and her family (parents, older brother, younger brother) live in a seriously Dystopian, very hierarchically-rigid Society, controlled by a Tyrant. As Grims, they are tasked to collect “lifestones,” the emission caused whenever a Human dies. These are not Souls, but Life Force. Grims collect these to add years to their lives, according to how many years the Human would have hd remaining. At the top of the Grim food chain is the tyrant Dunningham, a man who evicted his own older twin brother for mating with a Human. Yet Dunningham's rules are the kind: “Do as I say, not as I do.” Naomi's father wants very much to move up in Society from their Farrington community to the high-class Upper Estates, and sees the opportunity when Dunningham assigns Naomi and her two brothers, Bram and Dorian, to collect Lifestones from a soon-to-occur high school mass massacre. Naomi's problem, in Grim perspective, is that she gets too emotionally involved, and sympathises with Humans. Eventually, she makes her decision, and the consequences are uproarious.

I literally could not stop reading this book, from the first pages, I was so engrossed. Naomi is a wonderful Protagonist, and the world-building (actually four different Societies in the Grim dimension, Nowhere) is masterfully created and very believable.

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