Review--The Collector by Victoria Scott

Dante Walker is flippin' awesome, and he knows it. His good looks, killer charm, and stellar confidence have made him one of Hell's best--a soul collector. His job is simple: weed through humanity and label those round rears with a big red good or bad stamp. Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones. Bag-and-tag.

Sealing souls is nothing personal. Dante's an equal-opportunity collector and doesn't want it any other way. But he'll have to adjust, because Boss Man has given him a new assignment:

Collect Charlie Cooper's souls within ten days.

Dante doesn't know why Boss Man wants Charlie, nor does he care. This assignment means only one thing to him, and that's a permanent ticket out of Hell. But after Dante meets the quirky Nerd Alert chick he's come to collect, he realizes this assignment will test his abilities as a collector...and uncover emotions deeply buried.


What can be said about Victoria Scott's The Collector that hasn't already been said? True, it was a pretty awesome read and Dante makes one helluva main character and narrator. But yet I wasn't 100% in love with this book as most of the reviews have been. Maybe 85-90% in love with it though!

The cover description does a good job of summing things up, Dante is one of six collectors for Hell and Charlie is his next assignment. An urgent one at that. But when Dante meets her, he sees that she is a purely average teenager, bad teeth, pimples, crazy hair...you know, normal. He inwardly groans at the assignment he's placed with. Not only is Charlie geeky, but she's also totally good. Meaning, she wouldn't do anything sin worthy unless pushed. So Dante pushes.

Charlie to me was a little too trusting of Dante, but I know that's just her character. She sees the good in everyone. She doesn't question why Dante suddenly appears in her house and easily buys his lie. She doesn't question why he hangs out with her so much, especially since he's drop dead gorgeous and she's just average. Dante tries to get her to sin here and there, little things at first, so that way he can tag her soul with his mark, getting her prepped for Hell. Dante keeps himself distanced from the matter, thinking of it as just another job.

Although that doesn't last long at all. From my teaser earlier today, you can see how early on Dante begins to care for Charlie. Charlie is not among the popular crowd, she has two best friends and that's enough for her. Dante takes her to this teen party in hopes of getting her to sin, but she ends up being hurt by the party-goers and it infuriates Dante.

Dante has to battle with himself more times than you would think of Hell's best soul collector, when it comes to collecting Charlie's soul. Before a week is up, he finds himself caring. Charlie is led to believe that Dante is a collector for Heaven and that her soul will go there when she dies if she signs this contract. She'll get a few wishes in the process too. Charlie ends up wishing for beauty, in small doses. She changes from the nerdy girl to the beauty queen and I was kind of upset with that. I know it was just a part of the story and it the story has nothing to do with finding inner beauty, but the fact that Charlie actually undergoes several beauty changes was upsetting to me. I didn't like that she was trying to change who she was for a boy and popularity.

That was one of my issues with the book. The rest of the storyline deals with the agents of Heaven and Hell trying to get Charlie and Dante doing whatever is necessary to protect her, because surprise, surprise, he's falling in love. A little cliched, yet still sweet. I always like seeing the total badass jerk end up falling in love, because it lets his humanity spark just a bit.

Charlie and Dante were quite the pair, being the complete opposite of one another. Charlie's friends, Annabelle and Blue were also great! Both were of the social outcast variety like Charlie, but were still incredible friends. They cared for Charlie and it showed. Annabelle is the muscle to the friendship; she cares for her friends. She's tough stuff when she needs to be, but she's also there for some comic relief! Blue--yep, that's his name!--was the quiet type. He's clearly in love with Charlie and adores her for who she is. And he hates Dante. He has a few of his own tricks and secrets up his sleeve that make him more than what he appears to be. Overall, he's a good guy!

The pacing to this one was alright. For the majority of it, it deals with Dante trying to get Charlie to sin. But in the process he begins to fall for her, first in something like friendship and then later more. One of the other things that kind of bugged me was some of the language. It was the over the top kind of slang. I can't even think of an example, but it was just so cheesy. Like hearing teenagers talk in one of those movies that mock teenager movies--you know what I'm saying?

But other than those little annoyances, this was a rather enjoyable book. I loved Dante. Yes, he was the bad guy in the beginning and a jerk. But he was still funny sometimes. And then when he actually started to care for Charlie he made my heart melt just a bit! Even in the beginning he was doing nice things for her, trying to get her to smile or doing something she wanted to do, even though it would in no way help him get her soul tagged for Hell.

The Collector was a surprising read in many ways. There were quite a few surprises throughout the book, but the majority of them came at the end when it totally blows everything else out the window! So despite not totally loving it like I had anticipated, it was still a good read and I will definitely be checking out the next one!


Overall Rating 4/5 stars