The Supernatural Enhancements - Edgar Cantero

I don't know if I've ever felt so divided in my opinion of a book by the time I finished it. Usually by that final page, I've been able to come to some type of conclusion! But The Supernatural Enhancements is in a league of its own in many ways.

I think I'll do a pro/con list for this one, since the sides are so evenly balanced.

Pros:

• The creep factor is definitely there. If you like creepy books, this one delivers. There's both mystery and gore involved, and the mystery was compelling enough to keep me focused past the gore.
• The two main characters are great. I thought Niamh especially was going to get annoying.  She's introduced as kind of an edgy quirk personified, so I highly doubted that she was going to be well-rounded enough to be readable. Thankfully, I was wrong, and her personality plays very nicely off of the narrator's. They're an amusing and enjoyable pair.
• Speaking of humor...The whole book is funny. If you have a macabre sense of humor (like I do), you'll definitely get a kick out of this one.

Cons:

• There's too much going on. It's a haunted house story at first, then it morphs into a mystery, and finally a murder mystery. Cantero deftly keeps it all together and keeps all the pieces moving, but it's quite the roller coaster for the reader. I kept wishing the story would settle in and focus, but it never really does.
• Too much is expected of the reader. There are several instances where something clicks for the narrator, but it takes a while for the story to get back around and explain the piece that fell into place. I was under the impression that I was supposed to have made the connection at the same time as the narrator, but it was never fully clear which mystery was being solved at the time (see above: too much happening!). 
• The end is a little messy. Almost all of the loose ends are tied up by the end, but (without giving too much away) there are some escapees that make me think the author banished them because he didn't want to figure out how to deal with them more fully. It left the climax feeling rushed more than solved, which was a little disappointing.

All in all, I think it's worth a read. It goes quickly and it's a fun practice in mental gymnastics. It's also completely different from anything I've read before - even as an avid reader of supernatural-laden stories, I can't think of anything to compare it to that would give you a full picture. That being said, it  hasn't ended up on my list of all-time favorites, but obviously not every book will.