I had some mixed feelings in the beginning, but the more I read, the more I enjoyed the book. In the end I really liked Sam and I am definitely going to read the second book in the series. ( )

I enjoyed this one very much but it had quite a few unfortunate flaws.
On impulse, I would rate this 4 stars but after a more sober appraisal, I can only give 3 stars in good conscience.
The main reason I liked it so much is that it used a few cliches and formulaic patterns in unexpected and interesting ways or with interesting twists to them.
It's hard to talk about the things this book does well without spoilers so I just won't bother but be assured, they are there.
Now to the flaws.
There are an awful lot of coincidences piling up to make the entire plot possible which sadly makes it feel a bit cheap.
And I have to mention this one.

Sorry but that's just not how this works. Watch S1 of "Mr Robot" if you want to see a realistic depiction of how genius hackers might operate. You don't need deep technical knowledge to get this one right.
Now to spoilery territory.

The whole I'm going to kill you thing was immediately obvious bs to anyone familiar with the trope formulas but the mc should've caught on much sooner even without that genre knowledge.
She wouldn't have had to rely on suspicion but she could have at least mentally expressed the idea further than a few borderline hints that did not influence her decision making especially after miss werewolf caught on so soon.
[rambling]
Let me take a step back.
A common conflict that shows up in many books is the passing of time. Characters recall things at a level of clarity they really shouldn't be able to. The reader learned about facts only minutes/hours earlier in a distilled form which makes it seem recent but in the story a lot more time passed which should've worsened the protagonist's memory.
This is, of course, a problem the author has to balance with the annoyance to the reader who remembers much clearer and feels like facepalming about the stupid protagonist(s).
Here the opposite is the case. From the reader's perspective, it makes somewhat sense that she didn't catch on to the whole "I'm going to kill you" thing but if you look at how much time passed for the mc she definitively should have.
And it is even worse because even with this reader bias that already lessens the impact I felt like she should've caught on much earlier.
[/rambling]
Another annoyance was the second time they almost caught the rogue angel. You want to tell me the mighty Gregory wasn't able to prevent an imp from killing the rogue and stopping the pathetically weak and almost incapacitated angle at the same time? This is just one example of what I call cheap convenience.

I recommend this one for avid readers of the genre that enjoy the patterns but appreciate a twist on them here and there.
I have to give a fair warning for convenient coincidences and other cheap tools to help the plot along. ( )

Enjoyable! It really picked up with the inclusion of Gregory and I do love a story where the MC is not exactly... good. ( )

Trigger warning for fat shaming, animal cruelty and gore. ( )

great read

Really enjoyed this story was a great start to a series I'm looking forward to Reading, I loved the fact that Sam was so bad ass and in unshamingly evil was very refreshing ,liked Wyatt and candy but am rooting for Gregory as him and his cockroach ( had a right giggle at that ) would in my opinion make a fab duo looking forward to seeing what this series brings . ( )