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A review by flerpi
The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
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.