{Review} The Collector - Victoria Scott

The Collector by Victoria Scott
Series: Dante Walker #1
Release Date: 04/02/2013
Publisher: Entangled Teen

He makes good girls...bad. Dante Walker is flippin’ awesome, and he knows it. His good looks, killer charm, and stellar confidence have made him one of hell’s best—a soul collector. His job is simple: weed through humanity and label those round rears with a big red good or bad stamp. Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones. Bag-and-tag. Sealing souls is nothing personal. Dante’s an equal-opportunity collector and doesn't want it any other way. But he’ll have to adjust, because Boss Man has given him a new assignment: Collect Charlie Cooper’s soul within ten days. Dante doesn't know why Boss Man wants Charlie, nor does he care. This assignment means only one thing to him, and that’s a permanent ticket out of hell. But after Dante meets the quirky Nerd Alert chick he’s come to collect, he realizes this assignment will test his abilities as a collector…and uncover emotions deeply buried.

So when this book popped up and turned out to be everyone's new favorite, I decided I needed to take the plunge the day it came out. What did I expect? The next Daemon Black (of Obsidian), of course. But, I was a bit disappointed.

The Collector is an angel/demon novel and I actually quite enjoy those ones so I'm all set on that. Dante works for the Boss Man (Satan) and collects bad souls as his job, the Collector. From the synopsis, I could see he was a pretty egoistic guy and I'm down with that. Within the first few pages, I was hooked on his personality. 

Dante as a narrator was a huge plus for me. Having a guy protagonist is pretty rare in YA so I was pretty excited. You almost never get to be inside a hunky guy's mind. Dante was charming, funny and witty and I enjoyed him as a narrator immensely. The author had a distinct voice and it really shined through and made everything better. 

I really loved the nicknames for God and Satan. Big Guy and Boss Man? Fits perfectly :) In this book I don't think we've gotten enough info on the Collectors and the Liberators, so I hope we get to learn more about them and the whole soul collecting thing in the next book. 

Throughout the book, Dante also grew as a person and I really liked seeing him realize some important things in his life.

Even though I enjoyed everything above, there were a few things that kind of ticked me off. The plot wasn't engaging at all times. I find myself bored sometimes just hoping that something interesting would happen. I never really liked Charlie as the love interest either. Not that it's because she was "ugly" or anything but because of her interest to keep on making herself more beautiful and selling her soul in the process. Let me clarify. I'm sure a lot of girls would sell their soul to be perfect and beautiful but I thought that Charlie was a better person than that. She developed her own group/organizations to help people. And I thought she was good and would be content with who she is. But I guess not. Besides that, I couldn't connect fully with the story. Not because it was a male protagonist though (I usually love and adore them).

Even though this book fell beneath my expectations (they were set pretty high), I would love to read the sequel and am waiting on the day I can. This unique take on angels/demons is for sure to shine through and presents a new voice in the YA genre.

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