Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by stang_gt3
Demon at My Door by Michelle A. Valentine
2.0
So I'm clearly in the minority here, but this book just doesn't do it for me. I admit I was torn between 2 and 3 stars, but while this book isn't as bad as the others I've rated at 2 stars it just didn't do enough for me to give it the 3rd star.
Altogether I'm confused by the marketing for this book in the first place. I came across it as part of the YA group I'm a part of's scavenger hunt, but the description, and frankly the cover, pitch the book as for adults. The YA group is right. This is not written for an adult audience. The writing is super simplistic. I read paranormal romance like it's my bread and butter. This is nowhere on par with the books I love in that genre. The writing style doesn't come close to someone like J.R. Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter, or Christine Feehan to name a few. I struggled to get through and finish the book.
To the book itself. First of all their is no character development. We're dropped smack into a world where relationships are established. I never understood why Stew was interested in her, or what Natalie saw in Stew. We tried to develop something with Rick, but even when Natalie asks him what he sees in her it's all generic, you're so amazing, you're beautiful. Really? Cause I've seen nothing about her that is so interesting other than a general interest in art that we get a glossing over and no in depth knowledge of. So she's had a hard life being thought of as crazy. We've seen none of that. Every person we've seen her deal with directly has treated her fairly normally. Only in the general and abstract are we told that people have always treated her different.
Let's not even mention the ending...
While I wasn't left with any unanswered questions or huge plot holes everything seemed very pat and unbelievably cut and dried. The love triangle just got on my nerves because while I wanted to like Rick he never came across as that special and I just wanted to slap Stew 9 times out of 10. Natalie, well she was ok, but for a heroine I wanted more bad ass I won't do that, not going to cross that line. Do something about your life, especially when you found out that not everyone thinks your crazy even if they don't like to admit it. You're handed another, admittedly difficult and quite possibly impossible option to save your soul and it doesn't even warrant a second thought. Let's just go finish the life taking we've started, doesn't even cross our mind that Rick could be lying to us and that taking those lives potentially could just make us the demon faster. Now granted that's not what the author wrote, but it was the first thing through my mind and it doesn't even occur to Natalie. Let alone that a sword from heaven and killing the guy who we made the deal with sounds a lot more believable and likely to do the job than taking three other lives. Nope instead we're going to go on believing everything that someone else tells us and build on our "feelings" that draw us towards two different guys until we can' separate them in our minds. Whatever the one we're currently talking to tell us that must be that absolute truth. A heroine should stand on her own.
Altogether I'm confused by the marketing for this book in the first place. I came across it as part of the YA group I'm a part of's scavenger hunt, but the description, and frankly the cover, pitch the book as for adults. The YA group is right. This is not written for an adult audience. The writing is super simplistic. I read paranormal romance like it's my bread and butter. This is nowhere on par with the books I love in that genre. The writing style doesn't come close to someone like J.R. Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter, or Christine Feehan to name a few. I struggled to get through and finish the book.
To the book itself. First of all their is no character development. We're dropped smack into a world where relationships are established. I never understood why Stew was interested in her, or what Natalie saw in Stew. We tried to develop something with Rick, but even when Natalie asks him what he sees in her it's all generic, you're so amazing, you're beautiful. Really? Cause I've seen nothing about her that is so interesting other than a general interest in art that we get a glossing over and no in depth knowledge of. So she's had a hard life being thought of as crazy. We've seen none of that. Every person we've seen her deal with directly has treated her fairly normally. Only in the general and abstract are we told that people have always treated her different.
Let's not even mention the ending...
Spoiler
We've spent the entire book trying to get her out of her demon bargain and once she finally does after basically helping to kill three people (but you know who cares as they were bad people in the first place) we immediately slap her into full demon to save her mom YET AGAIN! Ridiculous.While I wasn't left with any unanswered questions or huge plot holes everything seemed very pat and unbelievably cut and dried. The love triangle just got on my nerves because while I wanted to like Rick he never came across as that special and I just wanted to slap Stew 9 times out of 10. Natalie, well she was ok, but for a heroine I wanted more bad ass I won't do that, not going to cross that line. Do something about your life, especially when you found out that not everyone thinks your crazy even if they don't like to admit it. You're handed another, admittedly difficult and quite possibly impossible option to save your soul and it doesn't even warrant a second thought. Let's just go finish the life taking we've started, doesn't even cross our mind that Rick could be lying to us and that taking those lives potentially could just make us the demon faster. Now granted that's not what the author wrote, but it was the first thing through my mind and it doesn't even occur to Natalie. Let alone that a sword from heaven and killing the guy who we made the deal with sounds a lot more believable and likely to do the job than taking three other lives. Nope instead we're going to go on believing everything that someone else tells us and build on our "feelings" that draw us towards two different guys until we can' separate them in our minds. Whatever the one we're currently talking to tell us that must be that absolute truth. A heroine should stand on her own.