Clear: A Death Trippers Novel by Jessica Park

I always look forward to Jessica Park’s new releases as each book holds promising plotline and unique narration. This time around, Jessica Park diverts from her usual setting and surprises her readers with a combination of romance and paranormal. Immediately so, I bought a paperback copy of the book from Book Depository.

Here’s the plot description from the back cover of the book:

Stella Ford’s grasp on reality is already loose, and it’s about to come undone.

When the college junior flees Chicago and leaves her toxic family behind, she heads for coastal Maine to find the one person who brought her peace years ago: Sam Bishop. But the Sam she once knew now has painful secrets.

Stella is determined to heal them both. Healing, however, is a challenge when the walls of her everyday existence collapse. And when Sam’s best friend is his worst enemy.

When the line between life and death blurs.

When an end is just a beginning.

When lust and rage rule.

Yet during extraordinary chaos, there can be extraordinary love, even if that love comes with a twist.

Welcome to death tripping.

A thriller, a paranormal, and a passionate romance, CLEAR crosses genres and breaks boundaries.

The moment I saw the title, it posed a lot of questions on my mind. The word “clear” may evidently convey a metaphorical meaning, but what caught my attention most were the words that came after. What does a death tripper mean? And how would it fit into the story? The synopsis didn’t even give out anything, so everything I drew came out blanks. This intriguing, mysterious title triggered my curiosity more and pushed me to read the book the soonest possible.

Opening this book was like being presented with a box of jigsaw puzzles waiting to be completed. The whole picture remained a mystery; hence, it was up to the readers to slowly fit the jigsaw puzzle pieces together as the story progressed. At the beginning of the story, I was already introduced to the strange situation of Stella and how she and Sam met. These significant turn of events will change the lives of Stella and Sam altogether.

I was impressed by Jessica Park’s portrayal of her characters. I loved the fact that there were no hints of pretentious personalities or perfect characters just to be liked by everyone. As the book was opened, so were the deepest and darkest secrets of the characters. Jessica Park succeeded in revealing their imperfections and vulnerabilities which made me empathize more with them and understand their current standing. As pages were turned, their walls and barriers slowly shattered. The book didn’t just center its story on Stella and Sam. It proved to be more than that as all characters, even Amy and Costa, were surprisingly interconnected with one another. The complex characterization of the characters just gave me a mixed range of emotions that took me to a roller coaster ride and I must say, it was one heck of a ride.

While reading the book, I was overwhelmed by the never-ending suspense of the plotline. I may have been just a spectator, but Jessica Park managed to somehow keep me from immediately knowing the underlying gist of the whole story. It seemed I gradually became involved with the characters and embarked the journey with them as well. It was that unpredictable. As one question got answered, another one arose. The book definitely kept me at the edge of my seat. There were moments when I even tried to control myself not to react loudly as certain scenes caught me off guard. There were moments of ohh…, moments of aww…, and then moments of whoa!!!

Clear truly was one twisted, complicated, extraordinary story full of surprises and challenging struggles faced by the characters. I now know what a death tripper meant. How Jessica Park delivered the story really amazed me. The romance and lust were crazy enough for me to fathom, what more of this death tripper concept Jessica Park developed. At the end of the day, what’s important was that I was able to complete the puzzle and I fully saw the bigger picture. As the story concluded, I closed the book with a clear, understanding mind. For a first-time paranormal reader, I enjoyed this book. Jessica Park showed more of what she’s capable of and it didn’t disappoint. Just like the characters of the book, I shall go find my good.