Title: Personal Demons

Author: Lisa Desrochers

Genre: YA supernatural romance

Read: Oct 20 2010

Summary: Detested it.

The premise of this book is that a demon and an angel are both vying for the love (and soul) of the same high school girl. This I don’t mind. The execution however…  Let us start with voice and character. The book is told in staccato alternating first person from the girl and the demon’s POVs. The girl is written in currently-in-vogue snarky-boy-crazy voice which is frankly repulsive and (hopefully) not even accurate in all but the most brainless products of mass media consumption. All she can think about is that whichever guy is in front of her looks hot in his jeans. The demon was less annoying but even more ridiculous. He’s supposed to be a 4000 year-old denizen of Hell out to corrupt the souls of the innocent and he comes off like a self involved High Schooler. At no point does he actually BEHAVE in any way particularly evil. He shows no particular long term perspective, but instead just has the hots for the girl. There is no real thought about what it might mean for God and the Devil to actually  meaningfully over someone’s heart, or even what it means to be a good or evil person. The good vs. bad is couched in terms of which boy the girl sleeps with. The high level premise is fine, but the book as written just makes no sense except on the most superficial level, and most importantly the characters are cardboard cutouts serving only the voice and premise — so who cares about them. This makes Twilight seem a work of art, and is exactly the kind of pseudo-religious story that I wrote my novel in counterpoint to.