*This title will be released on February 1, 2011*
 | Title: The Demon Trapper’s Daughter Reading level: Young Adult
Source: LibraryThing Early Review |
Book Description
Riley Blackthorne just needs a chance to prove herself – and that’s exactly what the demons are counting on…
Seventeen-year-old Riley, the only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper, Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father's footsteps. The good news is, with human society seriously disrupted by economic upheaval and Lucifer increasing the number of demons in all major cities, Atlanta’s local Trappers’ Guild needs all the help they can get – even from a girl. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing crush on fellow apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving distressed citizens from foul-mouthed little devils – Grade One Hellspawn only, of course, per the strict rules of the Guild. Life’s about as normal as can be for the average demon-trapping teen.
But then a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, sudden tragedy strikes the Trappers’ Guild, spinning Riley down a more dangerous path than she ever could have imagined. As her whole world crashes down around her, who can Riley trust with her heart – and her life?
Review
THE DEMON TRAPPER’S DAUGHTER does a number of things so amazingly well in this debut paranormal YA series that it’s setting a whole new bar for the books that follow, but that only makes it that much harder to overlook the rather significant missteps it makes too. I’ll break it down into the good, the bad, and the confusing.
First off the good. The worldbuilding is one of the best, most fully developed, creative, and thoroughly cool that I have ever read in a paranormal book. Adult and YA combined. It’s like a less harsh Kate Daniels world (incidentally they both take place in alternate Atlantas) with a Ghostbuster’s twist. And the overall plot is engaging and surprising from start to finish with liberal sprinklings of great action scenes.
Now for the bad. Where do I start? The writing itself is not great. I noticed this mostly with the dialogue which included a southern dialect for one character (stop with the dialects please!) and then with dialogue attribution. For example rarely to we see ‘Riley said.’ Instead she ‘joked’ or most annoyingly she ‘quizzed’. I vastly prefer ‘said’ or ‘ask,’ but maybe that’s just me.
And then there is the character of Riley herself. Wow I didn’t like her most of the time. She comes off as extremely abrasive and antagonistic, which only emphasized how immature she was. Yes, she’s had a hard life and it gets harder in THE DEMON TRAPPER’S DAUGHTER, but she was a lot to take even in her best moments. Specifically her treatment of Beck, the former apprentice of her father. Riley used to have a huge crush on him and he quickly (and not harshly IMO) shot her down as she’s significantly younger than he is. Now she treats him like something foul that she stepped in regardless of the many selfless and kind things he does for her.
And the sort of confusing. Basically every other chapter is told from Beck’s perspective and his chapters read like an adult novel, including some coarse sexual content and language that you don’t find in YA. This switch up lent an overall disjointed feeling to the book.
I’m finding it extremely difficult to rate THE DEMON TRAPPER’S DAUGHTER because there are some truly excellent 5bat worthy elements in this book, but when tempered by the shortcomings I mentioned above, it scrapes out 3bats. I am going to read the next book in the series in the hopes that both Riley and the writing improve enough to match the fantastic worldbuilding and plotting.
Sexual Content: Kissing. References to sex. References to prostitution. References to rape. References to homosexuality. Sexual exploitation of a minor. A scene occurs in a sex shop where items and a pornographic film are briefly described.
My Rating:
3/5
Good - A fun read with minor flaws. Maybe read an excerpt before buying.
Click HERE to read an excerpt
Previous books in the series:
#0.5 - Retro Demonology (Free ebook prequel)
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ReplyDeleteJust an FYI for your readers, this book is already out. I bought it last week, looking forward to reading it.
ReplyDeleteNice review. The Sexual Content part just cracked me up, it's so legthy for a YA.
ReplyDeleteA Simple Love - Thanks. I'll go check it out!
ReplyDeleteNightshade - There were some conflicting release dates for this one so I went with the countdown on the author's site. But thanks for letting us know it might be available early.
Shera - Well, because it's a YA title, I thought it was important to be thorough.
This looks like a great read! Thanks for the awesome review!
ReplyDeleteMiss Remmers - There are a few great things about it.
ReplyDeleteI always love your honest reviews. I can't tell you how much I appreciate knowing in advance what the exact sexual content of a book is. I wish more bloggers listed that!
ReplyDeleteRebs - I always felt that way too, more so with YA books as that's good info to have before buying a book for a teen.
ReplyDeleteman i want to read this book just because of its name! The Demon Trappers Daughter...what a cool title...then i saw the cover...then i saw what it was about!
ReplyDeletei love the sexual content bit though...its so funny because its so long lol
Wings - The title is perfect and really does set the tone for who the character is. And the sexual content...well, it's YA so I wanted to cover everything :)
ReplyDelete