In Jane by Douglas K Pearson

My impressions after reading Chapter 1:

I was recently sent the first chapter of In Jane by Douglas K Pearson and asked to read and comment.

I had no idea what to expect, there was no preface as to what type of story it was... but I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

Synopsis:
In Jane seems to be the story of a 17 year old foster child named Jane. At first you simply think she's another hard-case foster story... but then she begins revealing more about herself through inner monologue, and you discover that she's far from normal.

Jane sees what are, essentially, angels and demons. They populate the world around her, hovering among us without the common mortal being any the wiser.

And in the church of Jane's new foster family, the Winkerbeans... something is going terribly wrong.

Review:
The first chapter's premise intrigued me. There was turmoil, torture, light and dark... and it left you with more questions than answers.
I was left wanting to hear the reasons as to why the angel figures were bound and tortured, I wanted to know who the shinning man was... and more about Runt.
The prose flowed smoothly for the most part and the story was fast paced and interesting.

My only complaint was that Jane had too many bizarre little sayings. She was constantly throwing in things like "sure as shell-shack and quack" or "goth of the Gollums among us."... either things that seemed like strange colloquialisms I've never heard before, or references to other literature or pop culture that was tied into the story in such a way to be possibly not quite as descriptive as it was distracting.
They pulled me out of the story because I either had to wonder where all of these strange sayings were coming from... or I had to stop and wonder... "What exactly DOES Goth of the Gollums among us mean?"

I am hoping as the story continues, Jane will find less need for spouting out such bizarre sayings all of the time, and focus on the much more interesting, far more bizarre things going on around her, because the story itself seems very promising!