(Cover courtesy of Flying With Books…)

Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I’d pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring…. until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something…unexpected happens.

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon’s touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades.

If I don’t kill him first, that is.

At first I was unsure how to feel about this book.  On one hand, the banter between Daemon and Katy was hilarious and overall I like the idea of aliens because it’s so different.  On the other hand, why do we have yet another girl moving to a small town who meets a hot guy?  Hasn’t that been done a million times already?  To deal with this cognitive dissonance I took the path of least resistance and accepted the book for what it is: an entertaining read.  Guilty pleasure, really.

I don’t usually like the bad boys, but I liked Daemon in this book.  He knows he’s being a jerk as we find out later but he actually has his sister’s best interests at heart.  He’s not just good-looking; he actually has a brain in his head and really does learn to care about Katy.  (I personally picture him more attractive than the cover model here, but that’s more personal preference.)  Even if he won’t admit it, you know he really does care for her and saves her from everything from a drunk jock that didn’t know what consent was to evil aliens who really wanted to kill her.

Katy herself was an interesting character.  She won me over partly because she’s a book blogger (yay!) but also because she falls in love but remains a strong character.  At times you can tell she’s falling for Daemon and other times she really hates him.  Quite understandable given his actions at times.  Yes, she does do stupid things even when people warn her not to, but haven’t we all done something that stupid because of scorned love?

I could start drawing so many parallels to Twilight, but I won’t.  This is a much better written version and the characters have depth.  It’s not just wish fulfillment on the author’s part, but it’s not exactly deep literature either.  Instead it’s a funny thrill ride with lots of action, banter and plenty of steam.  Jennifer Armentrout’s world-building was good, but I’ll definitely reserve judgment until the next book before I say it’s either ‘great’ or ‘bad’.  There’s a lot of room for expansion so I guess we’ll see soon.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

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