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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
While this book is often shelved as children's book, it comes with a warning: this series is Seriously Scary. And it definitely deserves this label. Darren Shan is a master in writing true horrifying stories.
Set in times where Christianity is rising and destroying the Old Fait, Bec doesn't know who her parents are. She is the sixteen-years-old priestess of a small town. When their town is being attacked by demons over and over again, she joins a small group of warriors sent off on a mission that is destined to fail.
The Demonata books are gory. There is a lot of detailed demon-slaying, and in Bec, also quite some casualties on the human side. An example of this you can find here. This really isn't a fluffy tale to read to your child as bedtime story. Unless you want him to stay awake the whole night of course.
Even for a violent book as this, the overall tone is very dark. Bec is on a mission that no one thinks will ever succeed. You start to feel for these people, their despair. Their home is raided again and again by demons, without any hope that they will stop coming. The tale of Bec's ancestors is so sad. Poor Bec.You can't help but feel sorry for the girl.
Bec is not a book that will make you bounce happily through the house when you've finished it. But it's brilliantly written, and so, so gripping.
Set in times where Christianity is rising and destroying the Old Fait, Bec doesn't know who her parents are. She is the sixteen-years-old priestess of a small town. When their town is being attacked by demons over and over again, she joins a small group of warriors sent off on a mission that is destined to fail.
The Demonata books are gory. There is a lot of detailed demon-slaying, and in Bec, also quite some casualties on the human side. An example of this you can find here. This really isn't a fluffy tale to read to your child as bedtime story. Unless you want him to stay awake the whole night of course.
Even for a violent book as this, the overall tone is very dark. Bec is on a mission that no one thinks will ever succeed. You start to feel for these people, their despair. Their home is raided again and again by demons, without any hope that they will stop coming. The tale of Bec's ancestors is so sad. Poor Bec.You can't help but feel sorry for the girl.
Bec is not a book that will make you bounce happily through the house when you've finished it. But it's brilliantly written, and so, so gripping.
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I suppose I should fore warn readers that this review is only for those who've read the book or do not care about important plot points and perhaps the ending being revealed. The fourth book in the Demonata series Shan again introduces a whole cast of new characters to get to know and try to remember. Helpfully, though, for those like myself who tend to read a lot and have a lot of characters and plots to keep track of, Shan kills all but one character by the end of the novel. I was quite relieved as now I could forget about them entirely and not have to worry about them popping up again in the next book and then having to look back since I'd all but forgotten them. I guess that would also reveal the fact that I'm not entirely sold on these series that insist on telling the story through a host of times, places and personalities. Apparently, one is just not enough. I would have been more pleased if it had again been about...that bald kid...I'm sure I'll remember his name any moment now. It was weird. I know that...his name was weird. It was short for something else, which I remember thinking I'd rather be called than his self-given nick name...it was something like Amadeus or something. Montblanc. Ulysses. Archimedes. AUGH! Googled it. It was Cornelius or Kernel. Okay. Well. That's my point, it hasn't been that long since I read the third book, but I guess it's been long enough since I've read the second book for me to forget the main characters name. That's a problem. Now what I was saying was that I would have felt better if the series switched off between Grubbs and Kernel because then I might be able to even remember their names and I was really expecting that as well, since to me that made a lot of sense. Since, unlike this fourth book, they had at least two characters in common, which I enjoyed and in a way the two story lines could have united bringing the characters together, which is really what I expected to happen in the fourth or fifth books. The fourth book only shares Lord Loss in common with the others, of course. In the last two books as well, the world was at least recognizable, not that big of a temporal shift for the reader, but in the fourth book, it just completely throws you for a loop. I thought that the druid was going to be Bernabus just for some link to the other books, but Shan needed to invent some new character (though his similarity to Bernabus was rather dull). I've read the author notes for some of the books and apparently he didn't write them in the order which they're being fed to us. I'm sure that makes sense to him. If not to anyone else. However, he does seem very enthusiastic about the books if his use of multiple exclamation points at the end of every sentence is an indication of that. I suppose I really shouldn't assume. As for the imagery of this novel. It was in the same vein (ha) as the others. Though I guess I have to appreciate that he has finally put in a female character as more than a side note. Even then I'd have to say that she is the most luckless and pathetic of his 'heroes' thus far. And shes dead. Spoiler?