Review of The Demon Catchers of Milan

Goodreads Summary: "Mia’s ordinary life is disrupted for good in the most horrifying way possible when she is possessed by a hungry and powerful demon—and  saved only by the arrival of relatives from Italy, the country her grandfather fled many decades ago. Now her cousins, the charming and gorgeous Emilio and stern, elderly Giuliano, say the only way to keep Mia safe is for her to come back with them to Milan, to live, to learn Italian, to fall in and out of love, and to master the family trade: fighting all demons with the ancient lore of bell, book, and candle. Milan is not what Mia expected, but it will change her forever."

I was flummoxed for the entire first chapter, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The reader is literally dropped into this world which appears normal for all of, maybe, five seconds then suddenly all hell breaks loose. Literally. Insanity, confusion and then some.

I think my biggest problem with this book, the reason why I didn't find myself falling in love with it when I could, was the fact that I actually felt like I was reading a book about someone else. I mean, I never really slipped into the shoes of the main character [not to say that I didn't like the main character, because I most assuredly did]. At times I was speeding through the book, the first half went by really fast for me actually as I just kept reading without putting it down, but even then I felt as if I was reading.

On the flip side, I really loved the family that Mia found in Milan. Her own family that is. I loved how close knit they were, all of the time that they managed to keep together. I love the characterizations, the various ways that each of them were described, and how much they genuinely felt like a real family. This part of the novel was handled extremely well and made me feel all cozy. And had the side effect of making me crave all of the food that they were constantly nibbling on, making together or shopping for. YUM!

The most telling thing was that I actually set this book down for a few weeks and aside from the fact that I needed to write a review for it never felt compelled to pick it back up again.Yet as soon as I picked it up I fell right back into place and found myself enjoying the story, almost like a homecoming. I guess by now its obvious to you readers that I'm not entirely sure how to review this book. I think it has a lot of things going for it, has a lot of rich history to draw from and an interesting take on demonic possession. I loved the picture of Milan that it painted, and that of a close-knit family.

I guess the simplest thing to say is that I guess I liked this one after all.

I received a galley of this courtesy of Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.