The Dark Divine by Bree Despain review #30

Author: Bree Despain
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Pages: 384
Rating:
Grace Divine, daughter of the local pastor, always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared--the night she found her brother Jude collapsed on the porch, covered in his own blood--but she has no idea what a truly monstrous secret that night held.
The memories her family has tried to bury resurface when Daniel returns, three years later, and enrolls in Grace and Jude's high school. Despite promising Jude she'll stay away, Grace cannot deny her attraction to Daniel's shocking artistic abilities, his way of getting her to look at the world from new angles, and the strange, hungry glint in his eyes.
The closer Grace gets to Daniel, the more she jeopardizes her life, as her actions stir resentment in Jude and drive him to embrace the ancient evil Daniel unleashed that horrific night. Grace must discover the truth behind the boy's dark secret...and the cure that can save the ones she loves. But she may have to lay down the ultimate sacrifice to do it--her soul.

What happens when you put the pastor's daughter, a bad boy, and a good brother together? You get a story that takes the prodigal son myth and gives it a supernatural spin. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think it's pretty creative. Bree Despain gives her own myth/history/story line of the supernatural beings in the book. Now you must be thinking, Well that must be a complicated book! But guess what, it isn't. The author is able to mange that, not make it complicated, and it's understandable. Which is very nice, and easy for readers. The book is fast pasted, is easy to imagine, and a fun read. It's interesting to see how appearances can easily be deceived in this book. I mean one example of this is, everyone outside of Divine family think that the Divine's are a perfect, holy family. But really inside it's become very corrupt and they're having a hard time maintaining there role of a Pastor family. Which shows you shouldn't believe everything you see.

The book will definitely make readers dying for more, but it isn't a cliffhanger. Also everything that confuses you through the book will be nicely explained at the end, which is perfect. Bree Despain writing style is clear, easy to understand and imagine, and definitely realistic. I give props to her for this being her debut novel, seeing as this book was truly divine.

The Characters are very life-like and there motives and actions are understandable and very realistic. Though I felt that the emotion in the book was lacking, of course everything that was happening made sense. But when something happen to a character you wouldn't feel what the character would feel. Another thing that annoyed me was one of Grace's personality traits. This might just be me, but I felt that Grace was a bit closed minded. I mean she believed things to easily, and wouldn't change her mind until you practically shove the information in her face. Which made me, as a reader, a bit angry with her. But I think it's also might be very reasonable, seeing as she grew up in a family where she was taught to tell the truth and her family would tell her the truth as well. Which sort of taught her that believing the first thing she heard was the truth. But Grace also doesn't believe in the rumors everyone spreads about her at school, which could make this debatable. If your confused by this last little paragraph, your not alone. I understand what I'm trying to say in my head, but it's not coming out well on blog paper.

The Last thing that confused me was the whole Gabriel thing. It was explained in the end, but it still left me thinking. If you haven't read the book then your probably going to find this little rant confusing. I understand that she read the letter many times, but does that mean she read it earlier? So when they kept talking about going to see Gabriel, she knew because of the letter. Or she didn't? My oh my!!!

So now I'm going to talk about Daniel, and how much I loved him. He was very frustrated throughout the book, but as readers you cannot help but fall in love with him. Not much more to say then that.

Anyways that all I have to say, until next time this is: