Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Death Gets a Boyfriend
AUTHOR: Sophie Bonaste
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 139 pages
BLURB:
Death is in a lonely business. Since the beginning of time he’s been reaping souls then returning home to his little condo in the sky. It’s not a bad job. There are perks. But Death would kill to meet his soul mate, no pun intended.
Tommy Neilson is the next human slated for death. But when he can see Death, Tommy turns his whole world upside down. Curious, Death seeks Tommy out. The chemistry between the two is immediate and soon an unlikely romance starts to form. While Death may not be lonely anymore, he isn’t allowed to interact with humans. Consequently, he must make a choice: billions of souls or the one that makes being immortal worth it.
REVIEW:
After two hundred thousand years, you’d think that Death has seen everything there is to see. But when he goes to collect the soul of Tommy Neilson, he’s met with something he never expected to happen. Tommy can see him. Well…that’s never happened before. And maybe it was that fact, or maybe his day (and night) job is just finally starting to get to him, but Death can’t find it in himself to kill Tommy. So he doesn’t. And that is when things start to get complicated.
Not only because Death finds himself going back to see Tommy. And not only because Tommy can still see him. But when Death finds himself falling for the human, Death can’t make himself do what he is supposed to do. Again. Which is walk away. Instead Death comes back, over and over, and it is starting to get harder and harder to leave because Death is falling in love, and it seems Tommy is falling right back.
Too bad some things in life are inevitable–and it is not the taxman that they should be worried about.
This is a very lighthearted, quick read. Death is a quirky hipster, God (or the Boss) is a mumbling crazy person, and Tommy Neilson is just your average joe. Not a lot of time is spent in the dark and gritty of Death’s job, but it was an interesting take on the whole Grimm Reapers mythology. Reminded quite of bit of Dead Like Me to be honest. Just, you know, with less waffles or dead-end day jobs.
I have two issues with this book:
1) The first person narrative was a bit jarring at times. Partly because he repeatedly broke the fourth wall, addressing the readers, all thru the story and it kept throwing off the rhythm of the story. I don’t mind this is moderation, but it kept happening and I was getting really tired of the dude talking to me, and not living the story. But also, it didn’t help that the character felt really jittery–like 10 cups of coffee, jittery. Bouncing from emotion to emotion, from place to place, from thought to thought…it was just too damn much. I felt myself getting twitchy just reading this, and I haven’t had a cup of coffee is like two days (tea doesn’t count, right??).
2) Death makes no sense. Like as a character or as a person. He is over two hundred thousand years old, and yet he reads like a college freshman. There is no depth to his character, no weight to his voice and thoughts. I simply have a hard time believing that this guy has been around for more than a couple decades let alone a since the dawn of (human) time. This is an issue I also have with a lot of vampire books: if you are going to write a character with that much time attached to him, you need to sell it. I get that it is just supposed to be a light, fluffy book, but I have a giant pet peeve about this, and it kept me from really enjoying the story.
Then, if I can just handwave his age issues away as fiction and get the hell over yourself!…I’m still left quite puzzled by how Death acts. We are told repeatedly that Death is two hundred thousand years old, and yet we are asked to believe that he is completely up on modern pop culture…but that he also has no clue what a menu is, or what pancakes are? I get that the guy doesn’t eat, but people have died is resturants, and someone, in all the history of time, must have suffered pancake related death, at some point.
Or how is it possible that there is one Death, and like seven billion (or so) humans on earth, and yet there is plenty of time for Death to take the evening off? I get that he can schedule some deaths ahead of a time, here, but it was never made very clear why he had to be at some deaths, and not others.
I’m a very logic-oriented person. I am able to bend that logic to fit the world in which I am reading, but when I find myself completely at a loss as to what the freaking rules of this world are, I get confused and annoyed. And I get that not all people are like this, so they might very well enjoy this book. It is low angst and fast paced, so works as a nice, light read. I just couldn’t get over my issues with this book, so to enjoy it.
Just…pancakes? Really? How can Death not know about pancakes?!
RATING: 
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