A review by cinderrunner
Dates from Hell by Kelley Armstrong, Lynsay Sands, Kim Harrison

adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This book is EXTREMELY of its time. Its a cheesy collection paranormal romances from the early 2000s. So its largely not good and a little problematic. Sands' story was mostly fine, just boring as far as paranormal romance goes. There were some issues in it with consent and power dynamics between genders (which is an issue in all but Armstrong's story). Harrison's story was not very engaging or likeable and again had those consent/power issues. Handeland's was by far the worst in terms of being problematic with literal mental and physical references to SA and that SA being a good portion of the "steamy" scenes. I believe the writer is white but she uses a hispanic man as a man chatacter (which extremely cliché generalizations supplying most of his characterization) and using other religions/culture to try to build the in story rules around demons but still managing to be incredibly Christian-centric. The story also comes across as VERY slut shamey and "not like other girls". Armstrong's story was the only one without any major problems or boundary issues. It also had the most engaging and well thought out plot. It felt like a complete story. The only reason the rating isnt 1 star is for Armstrong's story (I'd give it 4 stars on its own). This book is very much not worth spending money on and its an example of exactly why romance novels have such a bad reputation. 
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