Misfitby Jon Skovron

Jael has always felt like a freak. She’s never kissed a boy, she never knew her mom, and her dad’s always been superstrict—but that’s probably because her mom was a demon, which makes Jael half demon and most definitely not a normal sophomore girl. On her sixteenth birthday, a mysterious present unlocks her family’s dangerous history and Jael’s untapped potential. What was merely an embarrassing secret before becomes a terrifying reality. Jael must learn to master her demon side in order to take on a vindictive Duke of Hell while also dealing with a twisted priest, best-friend drama, and a spacey blond skater boy who may have hidden depths. (goodreads.com)

I shall start off the post by saying - I probably would have liked the book a lot more if it was not written in 3rd person present tense narration. I HATE books written in present tense. Hate, hate, hate! If fact I think that's one of the reasons I stopped reading Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta series because towards the end the narration switched and it sounded like it was written by a 3rd graded.That being said, this was a pretty decent book. ;) I tried very hard to not let my irritation with the tense get in the way of the story. From the first chapter I was ready to put the book down only because the hairs stand up on my body with this present tense thing. Gah. Like nails on a chalkboard. *shudder* But the PLOT was calling to me and so I thought I would give it a chance.The plot was rather fun. It's nice to see a book about some other type of paranormal creature than what you normally find out there. Jael is half demon and in Catholic school. I thought this was a pretty cool combination to try and tackle in a book. (I also find it funny that I read two books that dealt with religious whatnots in a row). I liked Jael, I liked Rob, I thought Jael's friend Britt was sort of flat and just sort of in the book as a plot point (I was right!). Jael's father was meh as a father but I liked him in the flashbacks - which were written in PAST tense and oh, so much kinder to my eyes and brain. THANK YOU.Those flash back chapters helped me get through the book easier, however it always extra emphasized the present tense of Jael every time we switched back and I had to take deep breaths again.My favourite character has to be Dagon, the demon Uncle. His scenes always made me laugh and I found myself wishing more of the characters and dialogue could be more like him.The story didn't have any big surprises in it for me. It unravelled as you would expect a paranormal story to go, girl finds out she's supernatural, has to deal with Big Bads trying to kill her, she's supposed to save the world from a war, the Chosen One, etc. However because of the humour and interesting characters that sort of unoriginal story arc didn't bother me as much. If I ignored my allergy to the tense of the narration (heh) I was finding Misfit to be highly entertaining and a great escape for a few hours.It helps that the pages are all decorated with, um, blood?, I guess. Black and white though, but how eerie would it be if it were red? Ooo, they should do that! Aesthetically the book called out to me and that's why I picked it up in the first place. I couldn't recall seeing this book anywhere before. Once I read the summary on the flap of the book I was hooked. Took it home, went to add it to Goodreads only to discover that I had it on my wishlist there already! Obviously I must have seen it on a blog sometime in the past, my guess is from Kristi's Books to Pine For posts, where I always end up adding things to my wishlist and then forgetting they are there. ha!It was pretty obvious in the last third of the book that it was being built up for a sequel. That sort of made me sad because although I used to be a huge lover of series, I am sort of missing the excellent stand-alone novel these days. At this point I am not sure if I will pick up the sequel, I am curious enough to see what happens next to Jael but the thought of reading another book set in the present tense makes me cringe! ;)HONOURARY MENTION: Goes to the font on the cover and of the chapter titles. I loooooove that font and must find out where I can try and procure it for myself. There's just something about it that sings to me. Now that I am on a new computer, and a Mac to boot, I have to try and pump up my collection of fonts. I had a bunch of free ones downloaded on my pc laptop and two in particular I am going to miss like crazy. Need to find some cool free fonts for my mac... anyone?