Forsaken (The Demon Trappers, #1)

In the very near future (in an alternate universe) the world has gone to hell or more precisely went to hell a long time ago. The economy has collapsed, schools are held in grocery stores at night, reincarnated corpses are being used as mindless slaves, and demons from the common pee spraying, potty-mouth pest in the library to the weather controlling levitating threat on the deserted street are a very common fact of everyday life, and with demons come Demon Trappers.

Riley Blackthorne is an apprentice demon trapper trying to prove herself in a male dominated profession. Everyone seems to be against her just because she's a girl and any mistake Riley makes she's given a harder time on the account of her gender. She's not one to let that stop her from doing what she feels is her calling though and she'll do whatever it takes to prove that she's meant to be a Trapper. Its unfortunate for Riley though that what was supposed to be a very simple job goes horribly wrong and ends up involving emergency personnel, local news and her being brought in front of the Trapper Guild for trial. Lucky for her not everyone is actually against her.

Forsaken was one of those books that I had high hopes for but unfortunately left me feeling disappointed. I still enjoyed it quite a bit of course but I was hoping to love it since the world of Forsaken sounded so different from the usual paranormal YA I've read so far. The story, unfortunately, fell flat for me in both world building and characterization.

The issues I had with the world building were the inconsistencies between what I was being told and what was being shown and therefore had me asking a lot of unanswered questions. For example if cigarettes are a hundred dollars per pack how can people still afford to drive cars? If metal is so valuable that a necklace made of it is thought to be expensive why are there abandoned cars sitting collecting dust still in tact? And if a leader of your organization is pretty much hated by everyone in the organization because he's a chauvinistic, abusive alcoholic who mistreats his apprentices why does everyone still follow him?

And one big issue I had was (and this is basing off the assumption that the world of Forsaken is just like our world plus the demons and economic crisis) is why in a world where women can be soldiers, firefighters and police officers is it so hard for a girl to become apart of an organization that has been around for centuries? I understand it takes that one first person to challenge the system but why would it take so long for this to happen?

Sorry for bogging you guys down with questions but these were what had my attention after I read the book and not the plot itself which shouldn't have happened especially when it leaves you with a cliffhanger.

The characters although very different from each other and adding a nice contrast to our heroine felt like they needed something more or something less for me to really care about them. Riley was the strong independent type who dished back whatever was thrown at her most of the time but she was also judgmental, ungrateful and acted like she was better than another character who I actually liked so that annoyed me. Simon who is another trapper is your standard good Christian boy was thoughtful and kind but also quiet and well that's it. We never saw much more of Simon other than his being nice to Riley which was kind of boring. I don't need him to be a bad boy but a little more personality would help him a lot. Beck was the most interesting of the lot to me. A veteran of war and laid back jokester most of the time Beck did his best to add levity to a dangerous situation. Unfortunately for Beck though his dialogue grated on my nerves and may have been a part of his act to come across as an idiot and be underestimated but reading his lines grew tiring after a while.

I know it sounds like I didn't like this book but I really did and I am getting the sequel. Jana Oliver is a very good writer which I learned from reading Sojourn. She did a great job there in mixing scifi with historical fiction and she did a great job here in applying the demon trappers world to ours. And that aspect of the book was probably my favourite part I loved reading the details and seeing how the paranormal fit in with the normal.

So if you were interested in this book before reading my review then give it a read because what I didn't like might not bother you at all.