Not a good start to this year’s fiction reading.
Crossroads Chronicles Book 1
Chris Cannon
January 6, 2020
Entangled: Teen
Blurb: When a summoning goes awry, suddenly booknerd Meena’s summer job becomes something drastically different. Instead of cleaning eccentric Carol’s house, she’s bound to a demon as his soul-collector. Soon Meena discovers that the boring, pageant-obsessed, bonfire-loving town that she’s never fit in to is a hotbed for soul-sucking demons, demon-hunting witches, and vampires who just wanna have fun… And then she comes into her own powers.
Could things get any stranger? Good thing she meets new guy Jake—who gets her and still hangs around.
When Jake’s mom sends him off to his Aunt Zelda’s for the summer, he thought he’d be bored. But nothing is what it seems in this town. His aunt isn’t just odd, she’s a witch who fights demons and tries to maintain the magical balance of the town. Jake should get the hell out of there and, he would leave, except for bad-ass newbie witch Meena, who looks at him like he matters.
He never counted on sticking around, but Meena’s bound to a demon who wants to destroy her soul—and Jake’s finally found someone worth fighting for.
One of the most disappointing elements of reading is when a major plot point hinges on faulty logic. In Demon Bound, Meena signs a work contract with Carol, to clean, run errands, etc. After Meena sign’s the contract, Carol accidentally becomes bound to a demon named Bane, which somehow consequently means that Meena is bound to Bane because of this contract. So Meena spends much of the book looking through supernatural writings to find a way to dissolve her contract with Carol. Ugh. In the real world, guess what would happen? Both Carol and Meena would dissolve their contract because they would be in mutual agreement. And, because both Carol and Meena are human, they could do the same in the novel. Deal done. Of course, it might mean book done too so that little gem of logic never appears.
While there are some fun aspects to Demon Bound like shapeshifting familiars, a really cool vampire named Sybil, and the eccentric characters of Zelda and Carol, the novel is undermined by stilted writing that’s dialogue driven, flat characters, and lack of variety. Seriously, does every other scene need to be based around eating, especially ice cream? And, when a very sad event happens, it’s given so little emotional import that it sealed my feelings on this novel. The characters literally decided to have ice cream–again.
‘Nuff said. Let’s hope my next fictional read of 2020 is better.
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
rating:
2 butterflies and a ladybug out of 5 butterflies