Member Reviews
Alyce H, Reviewer
There isn't necessarily anything wrong with Daniel Taylor and the Dark Legacy, it's just an unfortunate combination of basically all of the things that I hate in one book.
The prologue is a painful info dump giving us all the information we could possibly need about the Guild the Watchers and the Demons, such an impressive act of exposition that I fell asleep within the first few pages because I was so bored. There's also an amazing amount of exclamation marks used throughout: if I could be bothered to go back and count them I think there would be vastly more than there are pages in this remarkably short first part to a trilogy.
It doesn't get better from there. None of the characters are interesting, and the lack of emotion throughout the entire book is startling. It's all just so bland. Vanessa and Daniel's relationship could be interesting if there was an aspect of will-they-won't-they tension, but because we jump from viewpoint to viewpoint we know they're both obsessed with each other and it just makes their scenes together drag out until their feelings are finally revealed.
Daniel being the heir to the Underworld and the only kid in school who's obsessed with black and wears long sleeves in summer is so overdone. The added fact of him being an outcast and in love with one of the most popular girls in school - who, of course, loves him back - makes things even more painfully cliched. It's a good thing this book is just over 100 pages (and I was reading it for The Reading Rush) or I don't think I would have been able to drag myself through it, no matter how short it is.
I'm tempted to carry on with the other two installments of the Demon Heart series, just to see whether things improve, but it just doesn't seem worth the time. I do wonder whether I would have liked this if I'd read it back in 2015 when it was first released, but my reading tastes have matured and I'm definitely over demons.
