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Book Review of A Demon Bound (Imp #1), by Debra Dunbar

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A Demon BoundI downloaded a copy of Debra Dunbar‘s A Demon Bound from Amazon while it was free.

Description from Goodreads:
Samantha Martin is an imp, enjoying an extended vacation from Hel. All she wants to do is drink beer by the pool, play mischievous pranks on the humans, and get her hot neighbor in the sack. It’s a relaxing break from her infernal home, as long as she manages to avoid the angels, who won’t hesitate to execute her on sight.

But when her naughty hellhound lands her in trouble with the local werewolf pack, Sam is blackmailed into helping track and catch a killer. The steps she must take to appease the werewolves will put her right in the crosshairs of the angels. And with angels, there is no second chance. 

Review:
I almost gave up on this book at about 50%. Honestly, the only reason I didn’t had more to do with not wanting to DNF two books in a row than anything to do with the book itself. Because for the first 50% I thought it was just awful. I thought Sam was contrary and dysfunctional impulsive. I disliked her voice and she annoyed me in general. Yeah, I get it, she’s an imp; mischievous and un-serious is the name of the game. But all her antics just read as ineffective slapstick to me. Plus, I found the characters flat and poorly developed.

Past 50% the story balanced out a little. There were more characters to dilute Sam’s all but suicidal tendencies and a plot, beyond I want to f*ck my neighbor, finally developed. I still wouldn’t go so far as to say I liked it, but it did get better. I will grant that the book’s world and angel/demon politics seemed interesting and there is potential. This may just be a case of a rough start.

The Heiress Effect

Book Review of The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2), by Courtney Milan

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The Heiress EffectI borrowed The Heiress Effect, by Courtney Milan, from my local library. I reviewed book one of The Brothers Sinister series here.

Description from Goodreads:
Miss Jane Fairfield can’t do anything right. When she’s in company, she always says the wrong thing—and rather too much of it. No matter how costly they are, her gowns fall on the unfortunate side of fashion. Even her immense dowry can’t save her from being an object of derision.

And that’s precisely what she wants. She’ll do anything, even risk humiliation, if it means she can stay unmarried and keep her sister safe.

Mr. Oliver Marshall has to do everything right. He’s the bastard son of a duke, raised in humble circumstances—and he intends to give voice and power to the common people. If he makes one false step, he’ll never get the chance to accomplish anything. He doesn’t need to come to the rescue of the wrong woman. He certainly doesn’t need to fall in love with her. But there’s something about the lovely, courageous Jane that he can’t resist…even though it could mean the ruin of them both.

Review:
Everyone seems to have loved this book. I just…didn’t. Objectively I can say it was well written. The characters were pleasantly flawed. A number of different threads wove together, there at the end. The book is well written, but I just didn’t particularly like it. I thought Jane went from strong and confident to lost and confused and back again too abruptly without enough reason for her changes. I thought the happy ending was too sappy. I didn’t love the characters. I liked them well enough, but didn’t love them enough to care about them. For me, this book really was just ok.

The Whipping Club

Book Review of The Whipping Club, by Deborah Henry

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The whipping clubI won a copy of The Whipping Boy, by Deborah Henry.

Description from Goodreads:
The Whipping Club explores the sacrificial secrets we keep to protect our loved ones and the impact that uncovered secrets have on marriage, family and society. Both a wrenching family drama and a harrowing suspense story, it chronicles an interfaith couple’s attempt in 1960’s Ireland to save their son from corrupt institutions.

Review:
I won a copy of this book a long time ago, but put off reading it because it looked like it was going to be so heavy. It turned out not to be what I thought, but I’m not sure it was better. This is a hard on to review objectively because I just so strongly disliked it. Everything in this book is grim, even the theoretically happy(ish) ending. It’s all people feeling miserable and being miserable to each-other, especially those in position of authority, and all of that misery is offloaded onto the shoulders of a blameless 11-year-old boy. Even the kind characters are often complacent in horrendous abuses. I felt bad when I finished this book and I do not enjoy that experience.

I can say that I had trouble with the points of view. It stared centered solely on Marian and remained so long enough that I settled into the single POV, but then another one popped up and then another and another until we had an omniscient narrator. But it felt willy-nilly. I also sometimes had trouble telling what was meant to be current and what was memory or flashback.

And honestly, I just didn’t particularly like any of the characters. I appreciated that Marian was educated and taught by her father to think for herself and be proud of her differences, something you don’t see in a lot of mid-60s female characters, but I didn’t relate to her. The only ones I came close to caring about were Adrian and Peter and they were brutalized. Peter especially, I felt he was little more than Henry’s whipping boy, like she wanted this horrible thing to happen but didn’t want to irrevocably contaminate her sympathetic character.

Then, it finished with this rousing declaration to protect the innocent and fight the good fight with a strength of will I didn’t sense in any of the characters up that point. In the end, those who actually enjoy depressing book club books this may enjoy this. But it wasn’t a winner for me.