Daughters Unto Devils (ARC Review)

Daughters Unto Devils | Amy Lukavics

Published by: Simon & Schuster Children's UK, October 8th 2015

Genre: YA, Horror, Historical

Pages: 304

Format: Ebook

Source: Simon & Schuster Children's UK, via Netgalley

Sometimes I believe the baby will never stop crying.

Sixteen-year-old Amanda Verner fears she is losing her mind. When her family move from their small mountain cabin to the vast prairie, Amanda hopes she can leave her haunting memories behind: of her sickly Ma giving birth to a terribly afflicted baby; of the cabin fever that claimed Amanda's sanity; of the boy who she has been meeting in secret. . .

But the Verners arrive on the prairie to find their new home soaked in blood. So much blood. And Amanda has heard stories - about men becoming unhinged and killing their families, about the land being tainted by wickedness.

With guilty secrets weighing down on her, Amanda can't be sure if the true evil lies in the land, or within her soul . . .

Perfect for fans of American Horror Story, Stephen King and The Others

Daughters Unto Devils marks the first YA horror I've actually finished. All the others I DNF'ed because nothing ever seemed to happen, and when things did they were cliche (faces popping up in mirrors, squeaky hinges on doors, strange and mysterious noises written off as pipes groaning.) This book I did actually finish, even if I do feel that very little of substance actually happened in most of it.

This book is creepy, and that's probably what kept me reading. I was never fussed on any of the characters, the setting and historical period wasn't my thing, the archaic treatment of women made me angry, and the flat tameness of the story didn't exactly keep my interest. But maybe you need to have patience to enjoy this genre, because these books tend to start super slow and build even slower. However, when Daughters Unto Devils did actually get going (at like 75%) I got really into it, and I really loved it. I was flying through the pages.

The end is seriously better than the rest. It's in-your-face horror, as opposed to the general hinting of the rest. For that ending, which I shan't forget soon, I've given this book an extra .5 star. If this is your genre, you're gonna love Daughters Unto Devils; if it's not your genre, try it anyway and stick around for the end.

(Side note: I don't know why it says knock knock all over the cover. It should say sinner...)

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★☆☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

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Reading Round Up (86)

Reading round up is a weekly journal where I record my daily reading progress, my thoughts on each book as I read it, and any books I've acquired during the week. 

10th August

I read 28% of A Riddle In Ruby by Kent Davis, finishing it, and this was fricking awesome. Can't wait to see where the next book takes Ruby!!

I also started Polaris by Mindee Arnett, sequel to my fave ever Avalon!!! I read 30% and I love it so much.

11th August

Today I read another 30% of Polaris, which is awesome. But I had some spare time to read and wanted a break from all the angst of Polaris, so I started Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics (20% read.) Kinda thought she was going to be pregnant with the devil's child for a few chapters there but that's not the case. Shame.

12th August

I finished Polaris (40%), and wow that went bizarre with the alien thing. Loved everything else but that totally undermined the rest of the story. 

I also read 13% of Daughters Unto Devils, which is fairly okay. I'm not a hundred percent sure this is a horror novel, as I was led to believe. I'm a third in and the only horrific thing to happen is the treatment of women in this era.

13th August

Today I decided I wanted to finish Daughters Unto Devils, and since it's fairly short, it was achievable. I read 82% and the ending was a thousand times better than the rest of it. I did get bored, but that's because nothing happened for a while, but that seems to be par for the course with YA horror.

Oh, and I also read 5% of Cities and Thrones by Carrie Patel. Mostly I wanted to start this because I know it'll be slow going for the first third until I proper get into it and I want to finish it by the end of the month.

14th August

I started This Monstrous Thing (26% read), which is not as good as I'd expected. And I read another 5% of Cities and Thrones, which seems to be the most amount of book I can read before my mind wanders.

15th August

Okay I read like 16% of This Monstrous Thing and I'm just not feeling it at all. It's slow and I don't care about anything that's happening so DNF.

16th August

*major grumbling*

I started Undertow by Michael Buckley, which I thought would be awesome but turned out to be not. I hated it within 9% and DNFed. Which makes two, in two days, consecutively. Yay~~~

Failing that, I started The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett (27%), and I'm having much better luck with it. Thank God.

Books finished this week: 3
Books DNF'd this week: 2

For review:

This didn't sound terrible and it's LGBT inclusive so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's pretty short too, so it shouldn't be so bad. I hope. I don't historically love alice in wonderland retellings, though, and the publisher has been hit or miss for me. Hoping this hits.

I have friends that like it, and although it sounds too close to Angelfall for my liking, I'm assuming the non-post-apoc thing will set it apart. Plus it was on read now and I have no will power against that.

Night Owls (4.5 STARS) + a guest post from Jenn Bennet

This Monstrous Thing (DNF)

Undertow (DNF)