About time I caught up with my reviews again – sticking to my self-imposed promise to read some of the sequels to books I enjoyed, sadly, once again, I was a tad disappointed with this second instalment.
I absolutely loved the first one, see my review of The Accidental Demon Slayer here.
And this is what I thought of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers:
The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers by Angie Fox
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I absolutely loved the first book in this series – The Accidental Demon Slayer. Book 2, not quite so much.
Lizzie has accepted her talents and taken on the mantle of demon slayer – a very rare, inherited set of skills. She’s still riding with her Grandma’s biker witch gang, and her drool-worthy griffin shifter boyfriend, and this time she’s out to try and save Uncle Phil (her fairy godfather, quite literally) from the succubus who has her claws into him.
Only trouble is, Lizzie needs a permit from the Department of Intramagical Procedures (DIP) to wield her magic, and there’s no demon slaying manual to tell her how to pass the exam.
What ensues is often comical, but also irritatingly muddled. I found the motivations of several of the characters questionable to the point of stupidity and many of their decisions decidedly plot-serving. Although the story mostly chugged along at a fair pace, it was uneven at times.
I really, really couldn’t forgive Lizzie’s decision to take time out to have hot griffin sex with her boyfriend, when she (a) knew he was being drained of his life energy by the succubi and (b) was up against the clock to save her uncle.
And where, after all her life until now being a straight-laced pre-school teacher, did she get the sudden urge to dress in bustiers and skin-tight leather pants?
Then there was the editing. Or maybe there wasn’t any. Enough said.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still many good things about this book – Pirate, the talking terrier, is just as great as ever, the biker witches are still awesomely crazy, and the magical thirteenth floor of their Vegas hotel, with its walk-on-water-with-fish-swimming-below-your- feet floor is true genius! The background is also smoothly interwoven into the story, so you could happily read this volume without having read the first; also useful if you’ve taken a big gap between books to remind you of what happened first time around.
So in summary, I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first one, but I like the characters and the set up enough that I’ll still read the next one, in hopes the plot is less muddled and the editing better.
deborahjay 