Review: The Dark Divine by Bree Despain

The Dark Divine
Bree Despain

My Rating:

Back of the Book:

A Prodigal Son.

A Dangerous Love.

A Deadly Secret.

Grace Divine - daughter of the local pastor - always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kallbi disappeared and her brother Jude came home covered in his own blood.

Now that Daniel's returned, Grace must choose between her growing attraction to him and her loyalty to her brother.

As Grace gets closer to Daniel, she learns the truth about that mysterious night and how to save the ones she loves, but it might cost her the one thing she cherishes the most: her soul.

My Review:

The Dark Divine, for me, is like that movie everyone you know has seen and is raving about. It's amazing, epic, etc. Even your granny dragged herself into the theaters to check it out. Only, it doesn't really appeal to you and the trailer is kinda blah but when it comes out on DVD you rent it just to see what everyone is talking about.

And you kinda end up loving it.

I went into this book with very little knowledge of it, other than the main character was a pastor's daughter and it had a theme of forgiveness. I know that normally this is the part where I recap the story but I'm not going to with The Dark Divine because part of the appeal is watching it all unravel as the story goes on. It's done beautifully.

I'd be lying if I said Grace was my favorite female lead character but she wasn't annoying and did experience some nice character growth. I ended up really loving Daniel and really wish the book had focused a bit more on his life during the time he was gone and what he had fallen into to. It's implied but for the most part brushed over fairly quickly.

I was unsure of the religious theme in the book, with the belief that it may come off preachy. I've never been keen on Christian fiction, and while this doesn't fall into that category, it was one of the reasons it hadn't originally appealed to me. However, the religious elements worked well within the story. I ended up really liking Grace's father as well.

The book, however, wasn't perfect. I read the vast majority of it this weekend. For the first third of the book it was almost impossible for me to put down (which kind of sucked because I was filling in for some extra money and kept having to put the book down to help customers). However, the ending didn't have the effect on me.

I actually had to force myself to pick up the book and finish the last fifty or so pages because it was due back at the library. I'm not saying the ending was bad, it wasn't. It just wasn't up to par with the rest of the book and I think it came off to rushed.

Which is why I am giving the book a high four stars. It's definitely worth reading, just make sure you have a lot of free time before you start.