The Demon Trapper’s Daughter
Author: Jana Oliver
Series: The Demon Trappers #1
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Paranormal, Dystopia
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
My Rating:
Summary:
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?
First Sentence: Riley Blackthorne rolled her eyes.
My Review:
I’ve heard so many good things about The Demon Trapper’s Daughter and saw it on the shelves everywhere, so when I gave it a try, I expected to really enjoy reading it like other people. However, all I have to say is that The Demon Trapper’s Daughter is not really my cup of tea for two main reasons.
First, I have to complain a little bit about the writing. One problem I had with the writing in The Demon Trapper’s Daughter is that it is just too detailed for my taste. In fact, you can read one or two sentences in each paragraph (or six or seven sentences per page) and you basically get the entire point of that page. The Demon Trapper’s Daughter may appear to be a short paperback book of only 340 pages, but the font size is smaller than any other books I’ve read. In fact, The Demon Trapper’s Daughter contains 33 lines per page compared to 27 lines per page from a book like Tiger Lily. That’s how much of a descriptive book The Demon Trapper’s Daughter was.
The Demon Trapper’s Daughter is also written from two different points-of-view: Riley and Beck. Usually I love reading about two people’s point-of-views to see what each person thinks and why they act the way they did, but in The Demon Trapper’s Daughter, I can’t stand to read Beck’s point-of-view. Beck’s point of view starts from chapter two, and as soon as I reached that part, my first thought was uh, am I reading this right? Beck uses words like “ya” and “yer” instead of you and your. I understand why Beck speaks and thinks that way because he grew up basically like an orphan and the times in The Demon Trapper’s Daughter don’t really allow for much education, but the way Beck thinks and talks just didn’t really give the book a good flow when I was reading chapters in Beck’s point-of-view.
It is very safe for me to say that if Jana Oliver’s writing wasn’t so detailed and if Beck’s point-of-view chapters wasn’t written using “ya” and “yer” all the time, I would enjoy reading The Demon Trapper’s Daughter a lot more.
On the other hand, I have to give Jana Oliver major credit for the great world-building in The Demon Trapper’s Daughter. I love how she made categorized demons according to their level or rank with their own different kinds of powers and different names. I also love how Jana Oliver isn’t afraid to show us that sometimes, a society can be so corrupt that there might not be any hope at all to save it. In fact, the world Jana Oliver created reminds me of a manga, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles Volume Five, where Syaoran faced a similar world as the world in The Demon Trapper’s Daughter.
There’s also a zombie concept in The Demon Trapper’s Daughter where necromancers can raise dead bodies from the dead and use them as their workers/slaves. That concept sounds very similar to the zombie concept in Undeadly by Michele Vail and since The Demon Trapper’s Daughter came out first…
As a side note, I was very surprised to find out that the entire summary found in the back of the book was based completely on the first chapter. That left me intrigued to read on and find out what the rest of the book is about.
Overall, I’m not saying that The Demon Trapper’s Daughter is bad, but it’s not that good either. It’s just an okay book, but if you are easily turned off by very detailed writing and tons of slang that people don’t use nowadays, then The Demon Trapper’s Daughter is probably not the book for you either.
Sorry you didn’t like this one. I love this series, but people have different tastes in books. I actually liked how beck talks, because to me it gave him more depth especially when it explains his past in more detail.
Great review, sorry you didn’t like it.
Yeah, it definitely gave Beck more depth, but I just couldn’t get used to it.
I am currently on book 4. I don’t like Beck much since he is a hypocrite to me. But I really wanted to see where it was going, so..
It’s going to end with a HBA! (I know since I own the fourth book because it has a gorgeous cover and I peeked at the ending. A very bad habit of mine. D: )
I finished it!! Yeah, It was a brilliant cover, but ummm, what’s HBA?
Oops, I mean HEA (happily ever after).
Good review. I read this book to and felt the same way. I couldn’t get into it.