Barely 3 stars. I can't quite say I enjoyed this. Closer to 2.5 stars. It was just there. I can say I read it. I doubt I'll even remember this a year from now. It was rather dull. I kept waiting for something to happen but nothing much does. A bit of unsettling stuff in the last 25% of the book but until then it was a drag. And nothing about this was scary. From the very beginning I kept wondering about all the references to Amanda's previous winter. She is very down and herself. She finds herself both selfish and yet not. Guilty yet not. It was frustrating. And it is all over nothing really! Her questionable frustration about her sister and baby are understandable so I don't get why she is so down on herself there. I really wanted more. The writing style had potential but the story just did not move and I did not like the main character. I found her agitating.

I really liked this book! The blurb on the front cover, "Imagine Stephen King writing Little House of the Prairie." That had me immediately. Amanda moves with her family from the small mountain cabin out to a remote prairie and find a house that has been abandoned by the previous owners. The conditions are appalling and are right out of something out of the goriest horror movie, and yet her father pays that no attention and sees their luck changing. He cleans it up, but can you really clean anything like that up as if nothing happened? Is this really the new beginning they were all hoping for?!

[REVIEWED this book on Dec. 2015--just forgot to add to Netgalley]

"Why couldn't I stop counting all of my sins? It was as if I was craving the wrath that was to follow them, challenging it, if only to make certain that I was, indeed, alive"

Aaand I'm hooked. This was an incredibly creepy book. One thing's for sure, don't expect a happy ending.

Amanda is being haunted by the ghost of winter's past. Daughter's Unto Devils is set in a colonial time where you just had to call dibs on land in order to settle and make your life happen (where watching paint dry would have actually been considered a past time), religion reigned supreme and everybody walked the straight line in order to not be labeled a sinner and damn themselves forever. Amanda is pretty sure she already is going to hell, so she doesn't let religious sentiment rule her life. Which might sound like freedom to some of us, in this book it is CERTAINLY a path to damnation. The message it sends worries me in the implications of when it comes to things we discuss in this society like pro-life vs. pro choice, how a woman is supposed to behave versus taking control of her own body, etc. If taken at face value Daughters Unto Devils is a chilling story that won't let up, but I still wouldn't give it to my little sister and say "have fun!" because of some of the more dubious religious elements, or maybe I would and just stick nearby in case there are any questions I might be able to help with. I think the book is just trying to stay true to the times, but the times were just so damn horrible for women's rights you can't help but cringe at the implications.

I will give Amy Lukavics props though, it was a steady accent into truly creepy areas and then a fast paced decent into madness. There are stories of crows wearing children's heads, demons ready to wear your body like a sack of potatoes and then continue to murder your whole family, but the very live imagery is what will leave you either wanting the lights on for the rest of the night or renouncing going into strange lands forevermore. The characters wont stick in your head overly much, but I found these 200 or so pages to be more about atmosphere than anything else (I did like the Hannah character though, she seemed like the only one with any common sense (view spoiler)). It does drag along at times and I thought some parts could have been plotted better (the horribleness of last winter for example which kind of ended up being a bit of a let down and not explained at all (view spoiler) but overall I wouldn't kick the book out of my reading list. It was quick and gave lots of fright.

Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics

4.25 stars

“It was the land itself. It had been soured by an infection of constant panic, hate and fear.”

Amanda Verner isn’t the same person she was before last winter. Before she saw something in the woods. Before her mother gave birth to her baby sister who was born deaf and blind. Before she met the boy that she meets in the woods. Now she’s pregnant with the boy’s child and she doesn’t know what to do. Her father has decided it’s time to leave their mountain home for the prairies before the harsh winter comes and tears the family apart this time. The Verners discover that their new home may not be the best thing for their family. The cabin is covered in blood and the floorboards and torn up from the floor. Amanda starts to hear things… kids laughing, crying, and things start to blur between paranormal and hallucination. What’s real and can the Verners withstand it and come out alive? This is the perfect Halloween book if you are a fan of ghost stories/ paranormal settings. Daughters Unto Devils is intense. It’s hard to put down. Lukavics does a great job of having an unreliable narrator struggling through her own guilt over her fleshly sins, her past, her family struggles, and whether or not what she experiences is real. I read this book so quickly and I didn’t want to put it down, which is rarity as a college student juggling being an active member of the color guard and in Chi Alpha. The only time I have to read is when I walk to class and I couldn’t put this book. I flew through it and when one of my classes was cancelled I took the time to read this book for that hour of free time. This is the type of book you want to read in one-go because if you put it down you’ll lose momentum and you may see the plot holes or oddities of the story. Lukavics is an author to watch in YA horror. She does it right. It’s haunting, creepy, unsettling, and over the top. She pushes boundaries that many are too scared to.


Whimsical Writing Scale: 4.25

The main character is Amanda Verner. Amanda is a very interesting character. She is someone you are not meant to like, but she also has qualities that make you like her. I think Amanda’s problem is that she hates herself so much that she thinks everything she does is evil, when reality she is a good person. This is actually a theme that I really liked and I don’t know if anyone else picked up on it, but the theme of evil and whether Amanda is possessed is important to the story and how it unfolds. I have my own interpretations of that Amanda thinks she is possessed because she is struggling with her fleshly downfalls. Amanda has participated in sex at a young age outside of marriage in a time when that is very against strict religious doctrine and I saw Amanda’s struggle with her own inner demons as a metaphor for her own struggle as a human. I’m probably off or just looking for themes that aren’t there, but I like to see Amanda’s struggle in that light because it makes her character arc come full circle and make more sense. While Amanda wasn’t always the best character, there were moments where she shined. Like when she holds Hannah for the first time and regrets praying she was dead. My heart melted at that scene and I started tearing up. Also props to Lukavics for tackling teen miscarriagesthat’s something rarely talked about, much less portrayed in YA literature.

"The only devil inside of you is the one you created yourself.”
Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 3.5

There is a wide cast of characters. Mainly because Amanda comes from a big family, but they are all such wonderful characters. I felt like I was a part of the family. Emily is the eldest sister after Amanda, but she acts older than Amanda and gives her a lot of wise advice. There was Ma, who offered a lot of sweet advice, usually in Bible verses that were spot on than the girls would care to admit. There was Pa, who was kind of standoffish, but he loved his family and his actions showed that. There was Joanna and Charles, who were never far away from one another and I sometimes thought they were twins. Lastly, there’s Hannah, who was born deaf and blind, she’s still a baby, but she plays such an integral part in this story that she feels more prominent than some of the adult characters. I loved Hannah so much. There is also Zeke and his father, a doctor, who live in the woods next to the prairie. They play a very odd role in this story and I’m still not sure exactly what they were doing, but they were definitely important. Lukavics does a great job of fleshing out characters with stories of the past to make you feel like you knew them and have been a member of the family always.


Character Scale: 3.75

The Villain- There are ants. Those ants. Totally horrifying. There are pigs, which are my worst fear because 1) they eat people 2) Spirited Away pig parents 3) that Criminal Minds episode 4) now this story. Pigs and ants were not something I expected to be used in such a horrifying way, but it worked out so well. But man, what a ride. I’m still creeped out over this and I’m glad I’m not a settler in a prairie.


Villain Scale: 5

The ending also sets up potential for a sequel and I say, yes please. I want a sequel from another member of the family’s PoV. Anyway, this a great horror novel that completely surprised and while it isn’t a perfect novel, it accomplishes what it sets out to do. This novel offers a scary, fun ride with an atmospheric setting that is memorable and haunting. Also pigs.


Plotastic Scale: 4.25

Cover Thoughts: This cover is creepy and unsettling. 10/10 creepy enough not to want to look at.

Thank you, Netgalley and Harlequin Teen, for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

PERFECT book for Halloween! I loved the suspense, there wasn’t a ridiculous amount of gore, and it had great elements! I feel like the endings tend to be rushed in these books, but it might just be the genre.