Personal Demons ~ Rachel A Collett (Personal Demons #1)

★★☆☆☆

I received a digital review copy from Xpresso Book Tours in exchange for an honest review. My opinion is in no way influenced by the author, publisher, or distributor.

When I was 13, I wrote a book. It was basically just a copy of the Vampire Diaries, but I thought it was excellent at the time, with brooding attractive bad boys, and a boring, quick to overreaction brunette protagonist. I didn't try to get it published though. I didn't write a trilogy. I realized that my crappy, cliché story was just that: crappy and cliché.

Rachel A Collett on the other hand... I don't think anyone told her...

Personal Demons is a book in which Sarah Mathis, a knockoff Elena Gilbert, meets a lot of very attractive brooding bad boys who all either want to get into her pants or protect her, or both as the case may be. Her story begins right after her best friend (her only friend really) dies in a car accident. Literally at her best friend's funeral, she's spewing exposition. Dead boy Ian's friend Benjamin was in the car too, and is now in a coma. On her way to visit him in the hospital, she sees a hot stranger and "[takes] a moment to appreciate his strong jawline, high cheek bones, and remarkably straight nose". What the heck? This hot stranger is a demon, her ~personal demon~ #RollCredits named Jonathan who was honestly just a discount Damon Salvatore. Good ole Ben turns out to be a stalker who was obsessed with her and is also 6 years older than her but doesn't even address this, and she doesn't mind. Besides these boys, there's Aaron, the mysterious Nice Guy™ deus ex machina who shows up every once in a while to save the day. Also, there's Laith, one of her other two friends who is overly protective and territorial of her in front of his own girlfriend, Elisa, an Alice Cullen wannabe. Sarah's dad, an abusive strong guy, forced her to travel around her whole life, homeschooling her (which apparently made her ~weird~ even though I know a lot of people who homeschool, and they're just fine socially and all that). Also, her dead mom is named Rachel (self insert much?) And don't forget Darius, who's a mile high and he's the scariest (Bad Lip Reading, anyone?) All jokes aside, once Darius was introduced, all personality Laith had was replaced with a copy of Darius's tough guy act. Cheryl, though, Ian's mom, was sweet, albeit a little grandmotherly for a 30 something year old who is supposedly "hot".

The plot was all over the place and the characters were really annoying. Sarah, for instance, is supposedly this kind and caring person, but she overreacts every single time anything happens, and finds joy in beating people up and taking trophies like a serial killer does (granted, the situation in which that occurs called for a beat up, but her reaction was a little strange).

The writing was really terrible. Around the middle, I actually got kinda invested in the story, but once I stopped reading, it was difficult to get back in. Collett has a problem of over-writing; EVERYTHING was explained. I have a brain. I can draw logical conclusions. I can figure out what he meant by saying that thing or what she meant by doing that. I don't need you to tell me what he meant. To correct this without actually correcting it, she would sometimes skip time and explain what happened instead of, idk, writing what happened.

Also, the dialogue was just so off. Take this line that Laith says:

"We've decided it's time you started hanging with us more."

Like, did the great council vote in my favor or something? You can imply things, Collett. You don't have to spell out people's intentions. Just say they wanna hang out.

Also, where the heck is all this money coming from? She has a single dad who works odd jobs, no job herself, and is going to college. Later on, she does discuss this, coming to no clear conclusion, but literally everyone she knows is disgustingly well off. Smh.

Overall, this was fun, but predictable, with an unlikable protagonist and an unoriginal world. I'm unlikely to read the sequel, but if I'm ever really bored and need something to pass the time and I'm away from literally anything else, I might just pick up Personal Guardians. Who knows. Stranger things have happened.

Buy the book here:

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