The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
The Devouring Gray #1
Publisher: Titan Books
Publication Date: April 2nd, 2019
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Source: Purchase
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 368
Summary (from Goodreads):
On the edge of town a beast haunts the woods, trapped in the Gray, its bonds loosening…
Uprooted from the city, Violet Saunders doesn’t have much hope of fitting in at her new school in Four Paths, a town almost buried in the woodlands of rural New York. The fact that she’s descended from one of the town’s founders doesn’t help much, either—her new neighbours treat her with distant respect, and something very like fear. When she meets Justin, May, Isaac, and Harper, all children of founder families, and sees the otherworldly destruction they can wreak, she starts to wonder if the townsfolk are right to be afraid.
When bodies start to appear in the woods, the locals become downright hostile. Can the teenagers solve the mystery of Four Paths, and their own part in it, before another calamity strikes?
Four Paths is a small town in a woodsy part of New York that was founded by four families in the 1800's and who's descendants are now responsible for keeping the rest of the town safe from the Beast with different powers that are passed down through each founder family.
Recently, the town has been experiencing an influx of deaths caused by the Beast and the town is starting to become disenchanted with the founders and question what exactly they're doing to keep everyone safe because it certainly doesn't seem to be working.
This book mainly follows four characters, one from each family.
Violet Saunders has just moved to Four Paths, her mother's hometown, after the death of her sister, Rosie. She is thrown into this whole founder family thing and has to figure it out without the help of her mother, who seems to have no idea what's going on. I liked Violet, but I felt like she just accepted literally everything anyone told her at face value.
Justin Hawthorne is basically the town's golden boy. He is popular, athletic, the son of the town's sheriff. He basically spends the whole book trying to help everyone and make up for his past wrongdoings. He is also SUPER "woe-is-me" throughout the book about everything.
Isaac Sullivan was probably my favorite character. He's kind of like the destructive, bad boy one in the group. He's probably the one with the most interesting (read: sad) past and the one that I am the most curious about in the future of this series. I want all the good things for Isaac Sullivan.
Harper Carlisle is the outcast of the group, having been shunned after failing her ritual and losing her arm. She is angry, and rightfully so, but it didn't feel like there was all that much to her beyond her anger and her basically hating that she still wants Justin Hawthorne after everything he put her through.
Overall, I liked the characters, I just wish that there was more to some of them. But I liked seeing how they all came to be friends or at least tolerate each other after Violet came to town.
I would have liked to know more about the Beast and where it came from. You don't even really get to know what the Beast even IS in this book and I feel like it raises some questions about who is really the bad guy in the grand scheme of things in this town. So, interesting, would like to know more.
There really wasn't a lot of romance in this book. There are no pairings by the end of the book. But there are some feelings brewing and I liked one of the pairs more than the other, but for a book with so many characters that are bisexual, there don't seem to be any main m/m or f/f pairings in the works, which is a little bit disappointing.
I have not seen Stranger Things, but I feel like the Raven Cycle series is an adequate comparison, it has a similar vibe, but maybe doesn't feel QUITE as atmospheric or eerie.
I enjoyed this book for the most part but, I felt like some of the writing wasn't my favorite. Some of the pacing was a bit off for me. Like for example, one minute, Violet was leaving her house with her aunt sitting on the porch with her cat, Orpheus, and then it felt like the next minute, Violet was in the woods and Orpheus was already there.
And the other thing for me was each character being explicitly described by their skin color. Besides the fact that this felt unnecessary because I only remember one small character being black, there are only so many points of view I needed to know that one character was white from. I am pretty sure there were at least two points of view that we first saw Violet from and they both said something along the lines of "there was a white girl standing there". I'm not saying trying to say that this is a bad thing, it's definitely not. I'm just saying that there are probably more ways you can describe a person besides JUST black and white. Which, later in the book this did get slightly better, but it was really prevalent in the beginning.
And I just want to know how a cat that seems to be fairly active can spend the entire book with a piece of red yarn tied around his ear? Like, it's adorable, but it just kinda... sounds fake.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was interesting and I am pretty sure that I would die for Isaac Sullivan. If you liked the Raven Cycle series, this is definitely worth a try. I am excited to see where this series goes.
Have you read this book yet? What did you think of it?
No comments:
Post a Comment