Personal Demons by Lisa Desrochers

368 Pages - Tor Teen (Sep 14, 2010)

$9.49 (Amazon.com)

Procurement

I purchased the Kindle edition after reading a character interview on Andrea Cremer's blog.

My Grade

Plot: 5

Setting: 4

Writing: 4

Originality: 5

Characters: 5

Romance: 5

Overall: 28/30 = 93% A

Cover/Title Bonus: 3

Overall

Badass demon boy, soft-hearted angel boy and a Catholic girl who's been kicked out of Catholic school team up in a hilirious, action packed YA urban fantasy unlike any other.

Summary (Goodreads)

Frannie Cavanaugh is a good Catholic girl with a bit of a wicked streak. She has spent years keeping everyone at a distance—-even her closest friends—-and it seems as if her senior year is going to be more of the same . . . until Luc Cain enrolls in her class. No one knows where he came from, but Frannie can’t seem to stay away from him.

What she doesn’t know is that Luc is on a mission. He’s been sent from Hell itself to claim Frannie’s soul. It should be easy—-all he has to do is get her to sin, and Luc is as tempting as they come. Frannie doesn’t stand a chance. But he has to work fast, because if the infernals are after her, the celestials can’t be far behind. And sure enough, it’s not long before the angel Gabriel shows up, willing to do anything to keep Luc from getting what he came for. It isn’t long before they find themselves fighting for more than just Frannie’s soul.

But if Luc fails, there will be Hell to pay . . . for all of them.

Trailer

First Line

If there's a Hell on Earth, it's high school.

Plot

I flew through this book! I had to know just what the heck was going on!?! The only thing I can say that I didn't enjoy about the overall theme of the book was that it was very much an adult read, even though it's published by Tor Teen. The only thing that makes this YA/teen is that it's set in a high school and the main character is a high school senior.

Setting

The main setting is the high school that Frannie attends and secondary settings are her home, and the area around her home. While there wasn't anything too awesome going on setting wise, the detail to description was fabulous. I read this book and it unreeled in my head just like a movie. It was a great experience not having any gaps.

Writing

Another book with alternating point of views. This time it's between Frannie and Luc, which was pretty cool being able to see what the demon dude had to say or think. Having both characters narrating helped keep the reader informed about demon happenings but it wasn't completely needed. The only reason I say that is becuase there's another character, Gabe, that doesn't get in on the action of having a POV and I think he really should have had one since Luc was able to have one. It would only have been fair.

Originality

Angels and demons are pretty regular characters in paranormal romance, adult. I haven't read too many demons in YA paranormal but I enjoyed it immensely. His bad attitude was refreshing because you could tell he had a heart inside that thick skinned body. There were several elements that Lisa used throughout that I enjoyed having in the story.

Although Frannie's last name is Cavanaugh, which is the last name that Rachel Vincent uses for her main character, Kaylee, in her Soul Screamers series.

Characters

Frannie and Luc are the primary main characters. There's also Gabe who shows up but he's never given the entire scene. Frannie was kind of a bitch in this. I was a little put off by her attitude at first but I later developed a liking for her and her attitude, especially when she showed it to Luc.

Luc was a badass demon but hilirous and loveable. Gabe is just about the opposite of Luc but such a softy it's not even funny. I'd love to see him with some badass attitude in the follow up.

Romance

There's all kinds of romance going on in this book! Frannie is quite a mess when it comes to guys. Poor thing. And then having a demon and an angel around to make things worse did not help in the least.

The romance in this gets a little hot and heavy but not too much to make it anything to be concerned about. It was very natural for it to get that way.

Cover/Title Bonus

The cover shouts adult urban fantasy to me. I guess because it looks so dark and brooding menish. The models look more adult than teenaged, which is fine because these are high school seniors but you can barely make out the lockers behind Luc so it's hard to tell with a quick glimpse. The models are pretty perfect references to the characters though.