I had to DNF this at 16% because I don’t hate myself enough to keep reading. The writing is absolutely terrible and, while the story could use some tweaking, the writing is what made me quit reading. I quite literally stopped in the middle of a chapter, in the middle of a sex scene even, and the writing was such a chore to read that I had no desire to even finish the scene, let alone the chapter. I would encourage literally everyone to read practically anything else and save yourself the effort of trying to read this. Every other sentence feels like it’s in a competition with itself to land in a “Family Guy Funny Moments” video clip, and the other half is spent telling you what’s going on in the story as opposed to writing about what’s going on. Combining these two things made it a herculean effort to even read as far as I did. 

The “demons” in this book are nothing more than overly sexy regular looking men, who sometimes have demon forms. Their talking with one another is cheap, vulgar, and the way they talk about women is disgusting - making it even worse that one of them is the main love interest in this book. Not to mention that the main male love interest has a curse that makes “anyone who would be attracted to him not be” and they ignore him - and yet, he’s said he’s had sex with women before, despite them not being attracted to him. Now, I’m no expert, but it really sounds like this book, multiple times mind you, is tiptoeing around him assaulting women for his own pleasure. If not, it doesn’t make it clear enough that that’s not the case.

I also had difficulty getting into the “lust at first sight” thing, when it’s stated that the main guy is a lust demon, so since Eva can see him then she has practically no option but to be sexually interested in him and finding him hot. It’s not a legitimate connection at all, and it also has some uncomfortable implications for the other demons in this book having sex with women. It makes the reader consider that none of these women are actually saying yes to having sex with these men, only that their demonic traits are so attractive that they have no choice but to be insanely attracted to them and wanting to have sex with them. So…it’s, essentially, not their choice at all. 

See, this? THIS made me question whether or not she even was attracted to him. Because this makes it seem like maybe she wouldn’t have been attracted to him, and that that is why she ‘is’! She’s not “seeing through the curse” - the curse is still working as intended, and normally she wouldn’t have been interested. Except now she is. And she doesn’t have a choice about it.

And granted. I KNOW that that’s not the intent. But, this is what I mean when I saw the very nature of them being lust demons sends a potential wrench in things, because I shouldn’t even be worried that the attraction the main woman leads is being coerced from her. And yet, that was my first thought. 

We also get to fall into the classic “men are horndogs and women aren’t supposed to be promiscuous or to feel horny, because that’s a ‘man thing.” Yikes. I know this book was originally written a few years ago, but you’d think such poor beliefs and thoughts would have been edited out for a 2025 re-release. 

Also, the word (I use this loosely) “fucknut” is on the literally first page, and it only got worse from there. 

The main love interest goes by both Asmodeus and Ash, which is fine, but there are many times where both names are used on the same page! As if they’re two different people! Surely this could have been more tightly edited to at least have him using one name during the same situation. 

ASH AND ASMODEUS ARE THE SAME PERSON. I noticed this because, up until now, Ash was pretty much only going as Ash, and then, after that one time of Asmodeus, he goes BACK to being called Ash within the narrative. 

The entire section in the middle where Eva calls her “not a normal mom, I’m a cool mom” parents could have been edited a bit better, as well. As it was, it felt a little off that she not only tells her mom that she thinks she saw a demon, but internally she’s glad her mom wouldn’t suggest something like - oh, I don’t know - seeing a doctor and possibly needing medication. The horror! Eva also calls it “the shrink” in a disparaging way when she asks if she should see someone about her mental health. 

Lovely. I personally adore it when mental health and needing medication is a joke. 

Not to mention her mom fearmongering about GMO’s during this conversation, and Eva agreeing that “the chemicals in processed food” could have caused her to hallucinate. That’s not what GMO’s are, but okay. 

Finally, this has nothing to do with anything else, but I found it a bit…uncomfortable…that the main woman lead works at a jazz club and yet spends the entire first chapter insulting the music that is playing at the club she performed at - trap music. And I understand, both are very different genres, but when both of those genres originated from black communities in the American South it seems an odd choice to disparage one and venerate the other. 

And finally, just two quotes I couldn’t help but include because they fully made me stop and question what the actual hell I was wasting my time with reading. This book, single-handedly, made me change my mind about generally not rating books that I DNF, because the fact that this book has such a high rating makes me lose my mind. I knew we were in a literacy crisis, but I genuinely don’t wish to believe so many people are so illiterate that they would not only be able to finish reading this affront to literature, but then have the desire to rate it highly. 

But first, coffee! Sigh.

We could’ve just deleted this entire paragraph and saved me the difficulty of having to read it. That would have been nicer to my eyes, personally.