Forsaken (Demon Trappers)

by Jana Oliver

[Amber]

Forsaken sounded like a fantastic read. I love demons, demon hunters *points at the demon-fighting Winchester in the banner* and all things supernatural, and so I couldn’t wait to get stuck into this book. Unfortunately, I finished it feeling a bit let down.
Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the novel, but I found myself getting frustrated with the main character so many times. And if you’ve read my reviews in the past, you will know that an annoying main character could easily mean the death of a book for me.
I’ll get the negative stuff out of the way. I found the main character, Riley, to be very immature and annoying. The girl was supposed to be a demon trapper (meaning, she catches and sells demons rather than killing them) in training, and I just assumed that would mean she was as badass as Rose Hathaway. Instead, Riley turned out to be a bit of a whiner and this became very annoying very fast. She also seemed to get over a certain event far too quickly. If the same thing had happened to me I would be curled up in bed for weeks, but then again I guess that would make for a boring novel. Plus, Riley was raised in a world very different to ours.
Onto the better stuff!
The other main character is Beck, who is good friends with Riley’s dad, and someone Riley used to have a crush on. Beck started off annoying, but he became a lot better towards the end of the novel. I liked reading things from his point of view, and I definitely wasn’t expecting that. He’s actually kind of sweet, under that hard shell of his.
Simon, the love interest, was very average. I don’t have much to say about him. He was nice. Yeah.
Which leads me onto Ori. Oh my GOSH, Ori! He was only in a couple of scenes in this novel, but I fell in love. What more can I say? He’s amazing, badass and totally hot.
Anyway, I found the demons in this novel fascinating. There were so many different types – another thing I wasn’t expecting – and I loved reading about the differences, and discovering which demons were more evil than others. There were a couple that were just plain cute!
The pacing of this novel started of very slow. It was an average read at the beginning. That said, the book majorly picked up in the final few chapters. I am so happy I continued reading, otherwise I would never have met Ori, and I would never have read that awesome climax!
I’ve given this book an average rating, because Riley and Simon just weren’t doing it for me, and it took a while to get into. However, I still definitely recommend this if you’re a fan of demons and the paranormal. I’m about to pick up the second book in the series, Forbidden, after I’ve posted this review. Fingers crossed for more Ori, eh?