The Collector by Victoria Scott

[TangledinText]

I don’t read a lot of paranormal literature, but when I do I’m reading it from a contemporary romance lens. That being said my analysis might be skewed to not appreciate all the little paranormal aspects and trained to be focused in on the romance and character depth that I’m used to dissecting.


Starting off, the arrogance of Dante was of course unbecoming and distracting how belittling he was. As the story went on I started realizing he had to be that much of an asshole to have the balls to tell a woman she’s ugly and what she needs to change physically to be pretty. I enjoy stories that have a realistic edge to where I can relate to the situations, but with this one I’m grateful but I’ve never met a person as rude and blunt as Dante. I can’t imagine someone could ever be “hot” enough to look down on others like he did, so it was hard to come up with what he might look like. After I got over the first chapter or so and Dante started communicating with Charlie (a girl), who was his assignment, it was a nice relief from his internal one-way conversation admiring himself.


The story was a slow build as the relationship grew and small twists and turns were thrown in on a calculated basis. There was no real surprise to when road bumps happened because to me they needed to happen to keep me interested with the low the story was at. I was curious why such a selfless girl would only use her soul contract to benefit her physical appearance based on a guy’s opinion instead of helping others like her grandma and people in her charity that needed it.


The story caught my interest in the second half and built its way up to the finale, but in my opinion the finale was so top heavy it was overwhelming. They mentioned sporadically about the Big Guy and Boss Man and the liberators and demons, but they did not go into enough detail for me. The end I was hit with way too many new characters I was trying to figure out their past with one another when instead it felt the only detail she cared to explore was rather on the good or bad side. I was hit with way too much at the end and with the final twist we are left with, it feels so random with how little detail was put it in, it felt rushed for the amount of action that took place.


I gave it three out of four stars because I kept reading and it was interesting, but I don’t know if that’s because I don’t read many like that and I just wanted to see it through. I will say about boyfriend material, I do not have the heart of gold that Charlie has and I would never date someone with such a high ego that pressures you into doing things you don’t want to do and throws money at you.