Review brought to you by OBS Staff member Katie

Summary:

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 first book in a series can make it or break it for me. I can honestly say that I’m going to get the second book the day it comes out! It was a fun book to read, it was rather fast paced, and didn’t bog you down with unnecessary details.

Right from the first few pages you can tell that Author, Jana Oliver, has a great sense of humor and she lets it show in her writing. The Demon Trappers Daughter was quite witty at times, which made the story very enjoyable. I found myself laughing out loud a lot. Seriously, who would have thought that demons like to steal/hoard random things like a ‘N’ key off of your keyboard and give you the middle finger all the time. But with all that being said, part way through the book things took a very serious turn. And all the funny went away, it was like that for some time. Then things kind of settled down an all the jokes started up again. I feel the author could have down a better job at transitioning from funny to serious back to funny again. I’m not saying that the book should have turned ‘Downer Debbie’ on us but maybe humor should have been toned down a bit more.

One other thing that didn’t exactly bother me, but every time it came up in the book I took notice of it. The Demon Trappers Daughter takes place in the south, Georgia to be exact. Being in the south wouldn’t you think more of the characters would have a southern accent? I only really noticed one character having one. I would have enjoyed more of the southern accent, Beck the character that had it was pretty entertaining when he talked. A major thing I did like when it came to the dialect in this story was the fact that it seems Jana Oliver either is really in tune with teens or just did some awesome research. The main character Riley actually talked like a teen would today. I find that when I am reading some books it feels like the author guesses at what a young adult would say.

Speaking of Beck, I didn’t care for the way the main character Riley treated him. She had a crush on him when they first met, but he is five years older than her and she is his mentors daughter. It made things a little awkward so in a pretty nice way he let her down. From then on she treats him like the ground she spits on. You can tell that Riley still has feelings for him, which could mean she is just trying to hide it by being rude. But I still don’t think it is fair for her to treat him that way, it makes her seem very immature.

All in all this book is not what I expected it to be. I actually didn’t know it was a pretty popular book until I went to Barnes and Nobles the other day and saw it in the Top Teen Picks section, it sure has earned its place there.

I also need to add that this book contains some mature content like language, a brief mention of a pornographic movie, and sexual exploitation of a minor.