Today in I have had this on my TBR list forever and I’m finally getting around to reading it, Dying for a Living finally made it! The more I’m going through this list, the more I’m realizing I should have gotten to more of these books sooner.
The story follows a woman named Jesse, a death replacement agent with a very particular ability. A small percentage of the population has a rare genetic ability to survive death and to stop someone else from dying. Jesse works for the NRD, an organization that arranges this service to the highest paying clients who they have found are going to die soon. Unfortunately, Jesse gets set up to be killed permanently on a job and the story follows her and her friends as they try to figure out why, and who. And, of course, her past comes back to haunt her.
Jesse is a total dick and I love it. I have a thing for protagonists who are terrible as people, but who are that way for ultimately understandable reasons. She’s under stress for the entire story, and deals with it by lashing out at the people around her, being sarcastic, and making poor choices. It all feels very realistic, especially as you get into her backstory and how she came to be in this position in the first place.
And now I’m going to talk about the bisexual love triangle. I never felt that it intruded on the narrative, but that I have thoughts about it as a whole is a pretty good sign. Namely, Ally deserves someone much better than Jesse, let Jesse just be with the bland but also kind of an asshole Lane.
Overall, it was a really fun story, even though the ending felt a little… well, given that this is a series I guess it had to end that way, but I would have liked a little more consequence at the end. I still liked it and the rest of the series looks like it has a lot of great promise to it.