Book Review: Death's Daughter, by Amber Benson

"I didn't want to be Death. I never asked for this! The whole thing I just experienced was so not as much fun as shopping at Saks or spending a day at the Golden Door!" (Death's Daughter, p. 284)

Death's Daughter would be a highly entertaining and original novel if it didn't read as if it were written by a spoiled high school cheerleader whose parents never told her that not every idea flowing from her pen was the epitome of cleverness. Author Amber Benson (better known as Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) tries to imitate the narration style of the spunky, smartass supernatural heroines popular nowadays, but her final product is more whiny than witty. The problem is only exacerbated by the fact that all of the characters have the same whiny, immature voice as Calliope's narration. If this was a Young Adult novel and they were all teenagers, it might be excusable, but for an alleged twenty-something professional it is both baffling and grating.

The story follows Calliope Reaper-Jones, who is living a reasonably satisfying life as an assistant at a Home and Garden company in New York City. She has cast a forgetting spell on herself so she can leave her family behind and finally be a normal person, but the spell is suddenly lifted when her father and sister are kidnapped and she learns that she must take over the family business.

Her position: Death. That is, once she passes the trials to prove that she can handle such power and responsibility.

The trials, however, are complete jokes. First of all, Calliope has mysteriously gained the power to wish herself anything and anywhere she wants, an ability which even the gods and goddesses on her advisory board find impossible and ridiculous. The problem with giving characters such overwhelming powers, of course, is that they can easily overcome any trial that comes their way without any conflict or need for character development. And so the author is forced to manufacture a nonsensical conflict: the challenge to overcoming the trials is not Calliope's lack of the right tools or skills, but the fact that she's too stupid to remember how much magic she controls.

Not that the challenges would be particularly difficult even without these powers. The first is to steal a pup from Cerberus, the three-headed dog guardian of Hell. The solution: ask him to borrow one. And so forth. That Calliope's first big problem in the story is not being able to read Greek, which drives her to tears, reveals much about both the character and the complete lack of anything resembling danger, at least before it's had its claws, teeth, and testicles removed.

The concept is actually quite interesting, with a lot of room for both religious commentary and political intrigue. The premise is that God/gods and the Devil needed a neutral arbiter to assign souls to Heaven or Hell, where they would hopefully be taught the error of their ways before being reborn. As Death is granted power and immortality, it is a coveted position, one that several people are trying to steal. But the mangled execution wrenches any possibility of fun from the universe, resulting in a wholly unsatisfying novel of an occasionally nonsensical universe populated with dull, forgettable characters.