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A review by itadakinasu
The Making of Gabriel Davenport by Beverley Lee
2.0
One extra star for originality.
Urban fantasy is a really iffy genre for me, and the supernatural themes presented in The Making of Gabriel Davenport actually came as a bit of a surprise. Overall, I think it was done well. The supernatural elements followed some familiar rules but also brought out some twists.
Lee wrote in some solid foreshadowing while appropriately building up tension throughout the book.
Sadly, I think that's where the positives end.
Characters
Lee introduces a lot of characters within the first 15% of the book: victimized teenager Gabriel and his broken mother Beth, studious mentor Carver, sensitive priest Noah, hot-headed Olivia and her twin brother Ollie, the farmhand savior Tom, and several minor inconsequential people.
The main problem with them is that there's no depth or development of any of them. What you see is what you get with every single one from the time they're introduced to the end of the book. I actually felt more interest and sympathy for the demon than I did for any of the other characters, and I hardly felt anything when one of them was in danger (partially because it's clear that Lee is afraid of actually killing any of her main characters off).
This reads a lot like an origin story or prequel lacking a hook to draw readers into the main series.
Plot
First and foremost, Lee's stylistic choice here is not the best. For a story like Gabriel's, we need to feel something for the characters' losses and hardships. We need to see what they're thinking and feel their pain. This distant, almost journalistic tone does little to endear readers to the characters, thus all of their struggles seem meaningless and emotional scenes fall flat.
I was tempted to DNF up until about 40% because it just dragged. The introduction when Gabriel was a baby was fantastic, but after that it was just painfully slow as Lee started setting up the pieces for the middle. Things finally started to happen around 40% and the book found its pace that it (thankfully) maintained until the end.
The main problem for me was not the pacing, though. It was a lot of random elements being introduced without being explained. Many of these elements were extremely unrealistic, such as Beth's mental state following the incident when Gabriel was a baby. I'm able to suspend my belief a little bit if there are other elements that are done well to compensate, but this just wasn't.
Conclusion
This is clearly the origin story of Gabriel. While that fact alone is fine, it just wasn't gripping enough to make me want to read more about him. The tone of the writing didn't suit the content. The pacing is awful until the latter half of the book, and even then, there are so many unexplained and unrealistic mechanics used to propel the mediocre plot forward.
Urban fantasy is a really iffy genre for me, and the supernatural themes presented in The Making of Gabriel Davenport actually came as a bit of a surprise.
Spoiler
I mean, how often do we see demons and vampires duking it out?Lee wrote in some solid foreshadowing while appropriately building up tension throughout the book.
Sadly, I think that's where the positives end.
Characters
Lee introduces a lot of characters within the first 15% of the book: victimized teenager Gabriel and his broken mother Beth, studious mentor Carver, sensitive priest Noah, hot-headed Olivia and her twin brother Ollie, the farmhand savior Tom, and several minor inconsequential people.
The main problem with them is that there's no depth or development of any of them. What you see is what you get with every single one from the time they're introduced to the end of the book. I actually felt more interest and sympathy for the demon than I did for any of the other characters, and I hardly felt anything when one of them was in danger (partially because it's clear that Lee is afraid of actually killing any of her main characters off).
This reads a lot like an origin story or prequel lacking a hook to draw readers into the main series.
Plot
First and foremost, Lee's stylistic choice here is not the best. For a story like Gabriel's, we need to feel something for the characters' losses and hardships. We need to see what they're thinking and feel their pain. This distant, almost journalistic tone does little to endear readers to the characters, thus all of their struggles seem meaningless and emotional scenes fall flat.
I was tempted to DNF up until about 40% because it just dragged. The introduction when Gabriel was a baby was fantastic, but after that it was just painfully slow as Lee started setting up the pieces for the middle. Things finally started to happen around 40% and the book found its pace that it (thankfully) maintained until the end.
The main problem for me was not the pacing, though. It was a lot of random elements being introduced without being explained. Many of these elements were extremely unrealistic, such as Beth's mental state following the incident when Gabriel was a baby.
Spoiler
Or Stu magically knowing how to stop the demon and being able to communicate this to Olivia, who he has never met and wouldn't know was in any way related to Gabriel. Or Ollie's sudden sadistic sexual fantasies, when it's even specifically mentioned that he wasn't homosexual or a sadist. Or how Noah's prayers and psalm book is able to repel the demon in the beginning but somehow he isn't physically capable of prayer at the end.Conclusion
This is clearly the origin story of Gabriel. While that fact alone is fine, it just wasn't gripping enough to make me want to read more about him. The tone of the writing didn't suit the content. The pacing is awful until the latter half of the book, and even then, there are so many unexplained and unrealistic mechanics used to propel the mediocre plot forward.