Customer Reviews

Repossessed

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4 star:		(8)
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The cover of this book led me to expect a kind-of fun, light adventure, but it really isn't. Kiriel the demon longs for time away from Hell and takes over the human body of a slacker-boy named Shaun. Potentially a comic set up. But Kiriel brings with him thousands of years of living in Hell reflecting sorrow and grief back at the damned souls; he feels joy at first encountering the wonders of the world while fearing his bosses from Hell will track him down and make him go back. Not really comic at all. Kiriel/Shaun is a very sympathetic hero who is in a rather desperate situation which, by the end, becomes heartwrenching. Yes, there are lots of funny parts, but as Shaun's love interest, Lane, notes, there's a well of sadness behind Kiriel's eyes.

The author did a couple of things extremely well. The book is a first-person narration, and Kiriel's voice is terrific. This reader really felt his wonder at things like eating Froot Loops for the first time, or experiencing his first kiss. The relationships, particularly the one between Shaun/Kiriel and Shaun's younger brother, are so well done. The author also did a great job maintining suspense--Kiriel never gets to quite settle into his role because things keep knocking him out of it. Despite the pace, however, Kiriel has time to reflect on what is happening to him.

I found the ending perplexing. This reader was really torn by it. On the one hand, we want Kiriel to be able to stay on earth and not return to Hell. Yet we don't want him to go to heaven, which is boring. Yet we're never quite allowed to forget that a human boy, Shaun, inhabited the body before. I think the ending the author chose was the right one, yet somehow I wanted more for Kiriel.

Highly recommended, and more thought-provoking than you might expect from the cover.

As humans involved in our daily lives, we often take the world for granted. Our days are filled with boring, humdrum activities. A. M. Jenkins creates a new twist on the mundane in his new book REPOSSESSED.

First, meet Shaun, age 17. He is about to take a step in the wrong direction - into the path of an oncoming truck. Next, meet Kiriel, a minor demon in search of a short break from the fires of hell. Put the two together, and you get a whole different view of daily life.

Seconds before the actual truck/teen collision, Kiriel slips into Shaun's body. Kiriel, a demon who prefers to call himself a "fallen angel," sees the perfect opportunity to find that needed break from his dull duties. He wants more out of "life." He wants to feel it and experience it first hand.

Once in Shaun's body, Kiriel is able to experience what he has only previously observed. This is his first actual look at the world through human eyes. Amazing! There's the feel and texture of everything from food, especially ketchup, to clothing against his skin. Fabulous! And that two-and-a-half hours spent in the bathtub make him wonder why humans don't constantly bathe. Kiriel finds himself wondering how humans can live such exciting daily lives and still express the desire for further adventures.

To Kiriel the real world is not all about just the physical experience. As he deals with Shaun's family, a divorced mother and his younger brother, Jason, he learns that love and the emotional side of life can be an unexpected roller coaster ride of its own.

A.M. Jenkins's demon makes us see what is really around us and perhaps makes us more understanding and grateful for how precious life is.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Don't call me a demon. I prefer the term Fallen Angel.

So starts this tale of a fallen angel's experiences in a teen's body. Instead of wanting to create havoc and destruction the author has the fallen angel want to experience all life has to offer. From the joy of baths, the sweetness of Fruit Loops cereal, to the beauty of a girl's eyes and hair. He even tries to warn a bully--one he knows he'll have to deal with in hell--to the shock and amusement of others.

I really enjoyed this tale. Fun and a fast paced read, you can't help but hope the fallen angel can stay. Also it makes you want to experience the joy and wonder of things we take for granted in our lives.

Kiriel is bored with his job as a tormentor in Hell so when he sees an opportunity to possess the body of a teen boy, he jumps on it. Kiriel, now Shaun, finally gets to experience all of the things he's only ever heard about. Corporeal sensations take precedence at first, allowing for both interesting and humorous scenes as Kiriel seeks out new experiences with various tastes, textures, and sexual sensations. Also new to Kiriel, however, are human relationships, and as Shaun now, he has a number of damaged relationships to deal with. While Kiriel explores what it means to be human, he can't help but worry his time in Shaun's body will be cut short when his absence in Hell is noted, and he is determined to leave his mark in the world before that happens.

Kiriel's perspective on what it means to be human is insightful, sensitive, hilarious, and touching. Many things we take for granted are highlighted and appreciated by Kiriel, giving us readers new appreciation for what it means to be alive. The cover and jacket description make this book seem like a light comedy (and it is very funny), but the depth and poignancy of Kiriel's relationships, observations, and morality struggles make this book well deserving of the Michael L. Printz Award nomination it received. Despite the weightier plot, Repossessed is compulsively readable due to Kiriel's easy narration style and numerous laugh out loud moments and commentary.

Highly recommended, to both teens and adults.

I love this new genre mixing magic and old elements of fantasy with modern-day teenage life. Charles de Lint does it so well, but he's a little dark for my tastes. This is just good, plain fun. I thought the things that interested a demon about life as a human felt very real and meaningful to me. It made me rethink my own life and what matters.
I loved how the demon tried to get sex. Not so different from a regular teenage boy, it turns out. And the little brother--awesome!

I loved this novel. It will make you laugh out loud page after page as a fallen angel who escapes from hell and inhabits the body of a dead boy tries to make his way through the day to day of high school, friendship, and a romantic relationship. All of this is in the pursuit of earthly pleasures, but nothing works out quite the way our fallen angel hero plans. Beneath all the fish-out-of-water or demon-out-of-hell humor there are some deep explorations of faith and justice. Great voice and unique story. Highly recommended. YA Reader

I haven't read the book yet but I can confirm this one is for teens who never before got the point of reading a novel. I have a fifteen year old boy who previously never once read a novel (just skimming through school reading lists with gritted teeth). This book blew him away, he read it all in a day, only now and again surfacing with a stunned look on his face and muttering about how he'd never imagined things like that. Priceless!

This book was recommended in a seminar for students that do not like to read. The plot is interesting, but may be unsuitable for religious or protective parents.

I was pleasantly surprised by this short little book. It's about demon who takes over the body of a teenager who is about to die. Kiriel is a very likable character for a demon. He reminded me, in a odd way, of Bartimaeus (The Bartimaeus Trilogy Boxed Set). He's obsessed with experiencing everything about human life that he can first hand. His biggest obsession is sex. Despite his sex drive, which the poor thing never gets to full fill, he does a lot of good things during his stay. Totally out of character for what you'd think a demon would do. I was saddened by the ending, but it was appropriate. Now I just wish there was more, like another book or something.

Read the book, you'll be glad you did.

"Tormenting the damned - it practically does itself, no lie." - Kiriel

"First thing I did was, I stole a body. I could have made my own, but I wasn't in an artistic frame of mind." After interminable eons of making the afterlives of the damned just that little bit more miserable, fallen angel (he does not care for the term demon) Kiriel is finding his job unrewarding, dull even. Under-appreciated, as he sees it, and completely fed up, Kiriel opts for an unapproved vacation; he steps into the body of American teenager Shaun Simmons milliseconds before Shaun is due to become grist for the wheels of a speeding cement mixer.

Kiriel is a fallen angel precisely because he is incurably curious, and because he can take nothing on faith. So once he is safely ensconced in Shaun's body, Kiriel sets out to experience as many human emotions, sensations and sins as possible before some-being in authority notices that he's gone missing.

While the results of Kiriel's experiments are often hilarious (he develops a passion for ketchup in packets) this is definitely humor with an edge. Jenkins uses this discontented minor demon to examine the very human notion of finding one's own place in the universe.