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A review by mariakureads
Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray
5.0
I made the mistake of devouring this series and now knowing I have to wait for the next addition is quite bad.
Additional mistake is that I listened to all of these fairly back to back and having January LaVoy portray them all is amazing and unbelievable that ONE person can voice so many and give them all their distinctive traits and have them be individual people that I've come to care and love and truly awe inspiring because I've come to care for these characters, so more than others, but care I do and that's more to do with LaVoy's portrayal of Bray's work, than what I could have done had I read them myself.
OK so there's a lot going on in this book and it's definitely something to slow down and take it in pieces but then there's moments where the book hooks you and you can't just take it slowly, you need to keep reading to get to the next and the villain, The King of Crows, definitely did that for me. All of his scenes were creepy, suspenseful, and thrilling as he's slowly uncovered throughout the book and introduced to the cast but his back story with Adelaide Proctor is just...bone chillingly creepy. I just love this villain, almost as much as naughty John.
Bray really took the risk to expand this world further by giving us new characters but she also gave me the backstory on Theta, which is my favorite female character, which was shrouded in the last two and here she shined, her vulnerability, resilience, and strength came through the words and made her so much more real. The addition of characters and the darker side of the 1920's allowed Bray to really allow the time period to shine through as racism, sexuality, antisemitism, and genetics are covered and spoken about in reference to the same characters but it harkens to the truth that was the 20's in the US and in a very much reality that is today. These are not topics that we left behind, they just became shrouded again so I love that Bray added this much history into the book.
Bravo Bray! Bravo!
Additional mistake is that I listened to all of these fairly back to back and having January LaVoy portray them all is amazing and unbelievable that ONE person can voice so many and give them all their distinctive traits and have them be individual people that I've come to care and love and truly awe inspiring because I've come to care for these characters, so more than others, but care I do and that's more to do with LaVoy's portrayal of Bray's work, than what I could have done had I read them myself.
OK so there's a lot going on in this book and it's definitely something to slow down and take it in pieces but then there's moments where the book hooks you and you can't just take it slowly, you need to keep reading to get to the next and the villain, The King of Crows, definitely did that for me. All of his scenes were creepy, suspenseful, and thrilling as he's slowly uncovered throughout the book and introduced to the cast but his back story with Adelaide Proctor is just...bone chillingly creepy. I just love this villain, almost as much as naughty John.
Bray really took the risk to expand this world further by giving us new characters but she also gave me the backstory on Theta, which is my favorite female character, which was shrouded in the last two and here she shined, her vulnerability, resilience, and strength came through the words and made her so much more real. The addition of characters and the darker side of the 1920's allowed Bray to really allow the time period to shine through as racism, sexuality, antisemitism, and genetics are covered and spoken about in reference to the same characters but it harkens to the truth that was the 20's in the US and in a very much reality that is today. These are not topics that we left behind, they just became shrouded again so I love that Bray added this much history into the book.
Bravo Bray! Bravo!