Scan barcode
flerpi's review
1.0
Short Review: 1.5 stars. The more I think about this book, the worse it is. How can an author take such awesome elements and make something so bad? It had some action and humor, so I was at least able to finish it, but ugh.
!*** In-depth discussion/SPOILERS below ***!
Long Review: This book and at least one of its sequels is guilty of some of the things that I despise most about YA books. It has bad romance, a stupid female character, a bad/creepy guy, and plot/logic problems. Let’s go over them, shall we?
1. The bad romance = Nick is a demon. Literally, a demon in a human body. Part of being a demon, as both he and outsiders have repeatedly observed, is that he does not have normal human feelings. He lacks empathy, fear, sorrow, and love; he’s not even sure he loves Alan, despite all he does for him. And yet in the second book, even knowing he’s a demon and probably not even capable of love, Mae persists in her attraction to him.
… dafuq? Lust I could maybe understand, but even that should quickly evaporate when she she found out Nick is a demon and thus potentially biologically incapable of loving. This doesn’t even cover the aggressive, violent, and even abusive behavior that Nick apparently displays in the next book. Which leads to the next point.
2. Stupid female character = Mae. Oh my god, Mae. I disliked her within a couple of pages of her first showing up in the story, and I quickly grew to hate her. She represents an attempt to make a cool character, but gone horribly wrong. She has funky clothes and lots of jewelry and pink hair; that’s cool, right? And she’s sometimes sassy and shows a bit of spine around dark and scary Nick, so she’s strong, right? No! No, no, no.
Mae tries so hard to seem smart, cool, and brave - and the author tries hard to make her seem that way - that she instead seems desperate, stupid, and selfish. She’s trying too hard, and other people get hurt as a result. And of course, she’s speshul: she’s a naturally good demon dancer, and she manages to impress the Goblin Market woman. Mae is Mae/Mary-Sue.
3. Bad/creepy guy = At times, I do like Nick. That is, I like him as a character/piece of entertainment, not a person. As a person, Nick is an asshole. This seems to be a requirement for many YA novels though: to have an attractive guy that is either a dick, a creep, or both. “Twilight” has Edward, who likes breaking-and-entering to stare at girls less than half his age while they sleep. Nick likes snarling, insulting people, and has no problems with killing.
4. Plot/logic problems = So much to cover. First, demons in this book are more like psychopathic aliens than evil, fire-and-brimstone servants of Satan. If Hell and/or the Devil isn’t involved, why bother calling them demons? Why not just call them spirits?
Next, all of Alan’s "free Nick" campaign is a problem. Nick and the author spent a long time making Alan out to be the nice, sane brother, the one always ready to sacrifice himself to help others. With the reveal of Alan's plot at the end though, I can’t decide if he’s scarily obsessed or insane. It seems like the options are that Alan just plain isn’t nice, having gotten so obsessed/dependent on having Nick around that that he risked and used Mae, Jamie, the people of the Goblin Market, and basically signed the death warrants of some magicians, all in his need to free Nick. Or he is so stupidly driven to help people that he had to free Nick, and for some crazy reason trusts that demon-Nick won’t go on a killing spree after.
Bottom line: I expected something like the TV show “Supernatural”: two brothers bickering between saving the world and/or ridding it of baddies. Instead I got a couple of pages of “Supernatural,” and then a whole bunch of crap.
!*** In-depth discussion/SPOILERS below ***!
Long Review: This book and at least one of its sequels is guilty of some of the things that I despise most about YA books. It has bad romance, a stupid female character, a bad/creepy guy, and plot/logic problems. Let’s go over them, shall we?
1. The bad romance = Nick is a demon. Literally, a demon in a human body. Part of being a demon, as both he and outsiders have repeatedly observed, is that he does not have normal human feelings. He lacks empathy, fear, sorrow, and love; he’s not even sure he loves Alan, despite all he does for him. And yet in the second book, even knowing he’s a demon and probably not even capable of love, Mae persists in her attraction to him.
… dafuq? Lust I could maybe understand, but even that should quickly evaporate when she she found out Nick is a demon and thus potentially biologically incapable of loving. This doesn’t even cover the aggressive, violent, and even abusive behavior that Nick apparently displays in the next book. Which leads to the next point.
2. Stupid female character = Mae. Oh my god, Mae. I disliked her within a couple of pages of her first showing up in the story, and I quickly grew to hate her. She represents an attempt to make a cool character, but gone horribly wrong. She has funky clothes and lots of jewelry and pink hair; that’s cool, right? And she’s sometimes sassy and shows a bit of spine around dark and scary Nick, so she’s strong, right? No! No, no, no.
Mae tries so hard to seem smart, cool, and brave - and the author tries hard to make her seem that way - that she instead seems desperate, stupid, and selfish. She’s trying too hard, and other people get hurt as a result. And of course, she’s speshul: she’s a naturally good demon dancer, and she manages to impress the Goblin Market woman. Mae is Mae/Mary-Sue.
3. Bad/creepy guy = At times, I do like Nick. That is, I like him as a character/piece of entertainment, not a person. As a person, Nick is an asshole. This seems to be a requirement for many YA novels though: to have an attractive guy that is either a dick, a creep, or both. “Twilight” has Edward, who likes breaking-and-entering to stare at girls less than half his age while they sleep. Nick likes snarling, insulting people, and has no problems with killing.
4. Plot/logic problems = So much to cover. First, demons in this book are more like psychopathic aliens than evil, fire-and-brimstone servants of Satan. If Hell and/or the Devil isn’t involved, why bother calling them demons? Why not just call them spirits?
Next, all of Alan’s "free Nick" campaign is a problem. Nick and the author spent a long time making Alan out to be the nice, sane brother, the one always ready to sacrifice himself to help others. With the reveal of Alan's plot at the end though, I can’t decide if he’s scarily obsessed or insane. It seems like the options are that Alan just plain isn’t nice, having gotten so obsessed/dependent on having Nick around that that he risked and used Mae, Jamie, the people of the Goblin Market, and basically signed the death warrants of some magicians, all in his need to free Nick. Or he is so stupidly driven to help people that he had to free Nick, and for some crazy reason trusts that demon-Nick won’t go on a killing spree after.
Bottom line: I expected something like the TV show “Supernatural”: two brothers bickering between saving the world and/or ridding it of baddies. Instead I got a couple of pages of “Supernatural,” and then a whole bunch of crap.
therealkathryn's review against another edition
2.0
The premise of this book sounded interesting but the world-building is weak and the surprise at the end was blatantly obvious, and I say that as someone who doesn't always catch such things.
janina_reads's review
4.0
This book probably isn't going to end up on my all-time favourites shelf, but I did enjoy reading it a lot and am definitely interested in the sequels. It isn’t the strongest in terms of world building, but it definitely is full of suspense, surprising twists and engaging characters. Every one of them actually had a certain something that made him or her stand out. And boy, what an ending. Never ever did I expect something like that. It totally took me by surprise. And that happens rarely. Actually, for the first half of the book, I thought this would be a solid three star read. Good, but nothing too special. But the second half definitely deserves the extra half-star. I was literally glued to the pages.
Nick certainly is an unusual main character. He doesn’t like people – and he doesn’t pretend to. It was kind of hard to relate to him because he himself doesn’t relate to anybody. The only person he is loyal to is his brother Alan. Everything he does is centred on him. Despite all that, I found myself caring about him. Alan comes across as rather harmless at first, but later on he clearly shows that there is something else in him – both on the positive and the negative side. I liked to see how the brothers’ life was turned upside down by Mae and Jamie. Those two had a great relationship and I loved how Mae stood up for herself and her brother and didn’t let herself be irritated by Nick – at least not too much. Nevertheless, (and this goes for all the characters) I didn’t really feel with them or for them at the beginning. They only grew on me as the story progressed.
The only thing I didn’t buy: Nick is often described as cruel and able to scare others with his menacing look. But [a:Sarah Rees Brennan|836009|Sarah Rees Brennan|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1254149255p2/836009.jpg] didn’t really make me buy his badass-attitude. Not once did Nick seem frightening to me although she clearly intended him to be that way. He is more like a boy who has shut himself away because of his past and now tries to scare others off from coming close to him, not letting himself feel anything for them. I felt sad for him because he wasn’t able to make friends or even love, but he did not scare me with his behaviour. Actually, he sometimes came across as a little brat. Nevertheless, I liked him.
As I said before, the world building isn’t too strong; the reader only gets thrown little pieces of information every now and then. Basically, we have this setting: Evil magicians are able to call demons and make them possess humans, being granted powers to conjure up strong illusion in return. I didn’t really understand why all magicians were supposed to be evil – the reason given is that the demons’ power is addictive and they can’t live without getting more at some point – but it felt weird to me that no one should be able to counter this addiction.
But the world is based on an original idea and the premise does make for an interesting story with a lot of twists, secrets being revealed and battles being fought. Also, I loved the atmosphere of the Goblin Market; it had something very engaging and colourful, yet mysterious and dangerous about it.
The writing sometimes read a bit awkward to me, especially at the beginning. There were passages where it flowed extremely well, but then there would come a sentence that would make me frown and that didn’t really fit. Also, when past events were retold, the narrative felt very distant, almost like the narrator didn’t care at all about what happened – it had this grocery list feel to it that didn’t really go well with traumatic experiences. And – seriously – the name Nick was all over the place. I didn’t count, but there were a few paragraphs that made me wonder: Why doesn’t the author use a personal pronoun every now and then?
But, I have to admit, after the first few chapters, it got better. Maybe also because I had become engrossed in the story and didn’t feel like nit-picking anymore.
All in all, not a book I regret spending money on (Although the cover is beyond ugly. I was always trying to hide it from peoples’ glances when reading on the train.) Will be checking out the sequel soon.
Nick certainly is an unusual main character. He doesn’t like people – and he doesn’t pretend to. It was kind of hard to relate to him because he himself doesn’t relate to anybody. The only person he is loyal to is his brother Alan. Everything he does is centred on him. Despite all that, I found myself caring about him. Alan comes across as rather harmless at first, but later on he clearly shows that there is something else in him – both on the positive and the negative side. I liked to see how the brothers’ life was turned upside down by Mae and Jamie. Those two had a great relationship and I loved how Mae stood up for herself and her brother and didn’t let herself be irritated by Nick – at least not too much. Nevertheless, (and this goes for all the characters) I didn’t really feel with them or for them at the beginning. They only grew on me as the story progressed.
The only thing I didn’t buy: Nick is often described as cruel and able to scare others with his menacing look. But [a:Sarah Rees Brennan|836009|Sarah Rees Brennan|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1254149255p2/836009.jpg] didn’t really make me buy his badass-attitude. Not once did Nick seem frightening to me although she clearly intended him to be that way. He is more like a boy who has shut himself away because of his past and now tries to scare others off from coming close to him, not letting himself feel anything for them. I felt sad for him because he wasn’t able to make friends or even love, but he did not scare me with his behaviour. Actually, he sometimes came across as a little brat. Nevertheless, I liked him.
As I said before, the world building isn’t too strong; the reader only gets thrown little pieces of information every now and then. Basically, we have this setting: Evil magicians are able to call demons and make them possess humans, being granted powers to conjure up strong illusion in return. I didn’t really understand why all magicians were supposed to be evil – the reason given is that the demons’ power is addictive and they can’t live without getting more at some point – but it felt weird to me that no one should be able to counter this addiction.
But the world is based on an original idea and the premise does make for an interesting story with a lot of twists, secrets being revealed and battles being fought. Also, I loved the atmosphere of the Goblin Market; it had something very engaging and colourful, yet mysterious and dangerous about it.
The writing sometimes read a bit awkward to me, especially at the beginning. There were passages where it flowed extremely well, but then there would come a sentence that would make me frown and that didn’t really fit. Also, when past events were retold, the narrative felt very distant, almost like the narrator didn’t care at all about what happened – it had this grocery list feel to it that didn’t really go well with traumatic experiences. And – seriously – the name Nick was all over the place. I didn’t count, but there were a few paragraphs that made me wonder: Why doesn’t the author use a personal pronoun every now and then?
But, I have to admit, after the first few chapters, it got better. Maybe also because I had become engrossed in the story and didn’t feel like nit-picking anymore.
All in all, not a book I regret spending money on (Although the cover is beyond ugly. I was always trying to hide it from peoples’ glances when reading on the train.) Will be checking out the sequel soon.
jascel23's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
tani's review against another edition
5.0
In the interest of rounding up, this is 5 stars, but in reality I'd call it 4.5. The beginning was a little slow, and I was a little frustrated, I think. I'm one of those readers who tends to empathize with the POV character, and Nick is one of those stereotypical characters that intrigues me so thoroughly. I think I was so busy feeling for Nick that I couldn't for the life of me figure out why Alan didn't realize just how much Nick cared for him. As a result, I wasn't too fond of him to start out with. That made it hard for me to get into the book.
I think things started to pick up for me after the Goblin Market, when Mae and Jamie moved in. Alan started to show some hidden depths, and Nick's actions became more and more emotionally dysfunctional. Who wouldn't be interested in that?
The best thing was the ending though, and it earns a clear 5 stars all by itself. Nick as a demon came as a huge shock to me, and yet it made so much sense. I really think that Sarah Rees Brennan handled that part of the novel beautifully. Likewise, the very end, when Nick makes his choice, was perfect. I loved the way he drifted, not sure what to do, resisting what it was so clear that he wanted, until he realized that Alan was still in danger, and then there was really no choice at all.
I'm really excited for the next book in this series!
I think things started to pick up for me after the Goblin Market, when Mae and Jamie moved in. Alan started to show some hidden depths, and Nick's actions became more and more emotionally dysfunctional. Who wouldn't be interested in that?
The best thing was the ending though, and it earns a clear 5 stars all by itself. Nick as a demon came as a huge shock to me, and yet it made so much sense. I really think that Sarah Rees Brennan handled that part of the novel beautifully. Likewise, the very end, when Nick makes his choice, was perfect. I loved the way he drifted, not sure what to do, resisting what it was so clear that he wanted, until he realized that Alan was still in danger, and then there was really no choice at all.
I'm really excited for the next book in this series!
shanellewrites's review against another edition
4.0
I absolutely loved this book.
For me, the two main characters (Nick and Alan) stand out as my favorite thing about this book. Both are very complex, instantly likable, and fascinating. They are incredible characters and I'm in awe of Sarah Rees Brennan's creation.
The writing was also a big standout for me. Apart from a few awkward sentences/grammatical errors here and there, it was incredible - polished, powerful, and not too overwhelming.
I would recommend this book to any mature reader (it does get slightly PG-13 in parts) - teens and adults of both genders that enjoy the fantasy genre.
For me, the two main characters (Nick and Alan) stand out as my favorite thing about this book. Both are very complex, instantly likable, and fascinating. They are incredible characters and I'm in awe of Sarah Rees Brennan's creation.
The writing was also a big standout for me. Apart from a few awkward sentences/grammatical errors here and there, it was incredible - polished, powerful, and not too overwhelming.
I would recommend this book to any mature reader (it does get slightly PG-13 in parts) - teens and adults of both genders that enjoy the fantasy genre.
malreynolds111's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed the twist at the end of this book. Looking forward to reading book # 2
aoosterwyk's review against another edition
3.0
Brennan's writing is full of wit and humor, despite the dark content. The worlds she creates are rich and real. I started this book yesterday evening and didn't quite finish it before bed time. It wouldn't let go and my brain puzzled with it until I went "NO WAY!" Oh yes way!
Heading to the library now.
Heading to the library now.
amber1989's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't really like this much. Nick was a very dislikable MC, yes you do understand why he is that way at the end but unfortunately that didn't change my opinion of him. I don't think I will continue this series