Reviews - When Devils Sing

426 reviews for:

When Devils Sing

Xan Kaur

3.92 AVERAGE

emchrisman13's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

cwodziak's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

lingfish7's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

🎧This gothic horror book set in rural Georgia is eerie and suspenseful. I found myself totally enraptured by each chapter and POV. The concept is there are 3 distinct devils in this rural Georgia town, Carrion, who are brothers. They make deals with various people and each POV involves a young teenager who has either made a deal with one of the devils and/or is trying to find out why every 13 years during the cicada celebration, people in Carrion die.

Each character was diverse in their race, socioeconomic background, and sexual orientation. I found the intersection of their stories extremely engaging and the finale was quite a show! This book is definitely horror mixed with thriller. It’s set in modern day and it involves horror in the “ewww that’s kind of disgusting” way as well as the violence of evil people doing evil things like murder.

I really enjoyed the mystical elements of three devils with their own powers and limitations. The devils preyed on the weak and struggling teenagers who felt stuck in rural Georgia with few opportunities. One of the main characters had a podcast and the audiobook was excellent for the podcast scenes because it sounded like a legit podcast.

nasgioia's review against another edition

4.5

dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

craftyfae's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 67%

Stepped away too long, ill circle back later

leapoffaith01's review against another edition

2.0

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunately I found myself really struggling to get through it. The four characters in the book have merit, but I don’t find myself drawn to them or caring to read more of their POVs. One reason for that maybe the pacing/the frequent switching between their perspectives. I also am just not sure that I find any of them particularly likeable, in general.

I also felt like the suspense and intrigue was underwhelming. As someone who lives in a lake town in the rural South, I think a lot of the “scary” iconography was lost on me. A lot of the story depended on cicadas being somewhat scary, and I have never, once in my life, found cicadas scary. Maybe someone who is more unfamiliar with the setting may feel differently and enjoy this book.

natundertrees's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 35%

While the concept of this was really interesting, the execution left SO much to be desired. In particular, I found the writing to be pretty lackluster and awkward, and the amount of POV characters to be overly ambitious. I think that focusing in on one or two perspective characters as opposed to four would have really helped tighten up the narrative, but alas.