Review| Before the Devil Breaks You

The Book: Before the Devil Breaks You by Libba Bray

Date Published: October 3, 2017

Dates Read: December 7 – 13, 2017

Current Goodreads Rating: 4.23/5

Hi. Libba Bray is a genius and I love her so much. End of review.

Just kidding. Libba Bray is amazing and I love anything she writes, but I have an English degree. I’m not just going to limit this review to 15 words.

This series is. So. Good. I don’t want to get too much into specifics because this is the third book in the series so any spoilers would be massive. I am a huge fan of historical fiction and Libba pulls no stops in her research for this series. She admittedly takes some liberties in creating dance clubs and naming insane asylums, but they are all vibrant on the pages as though they actually existed on the streets of New York 90 years ago.

Like I said in my previous mini-review of this book, this story has paranormal elements to it and is very much in the horror genre, but there are some very real gut punches scattered throughout this series. Sometimes it wasn’t clear who was the monster hiding in the shadows: the King of Crows or humanity itself. There was constant talk about getting rid of the “problem” in America and making America pure again and I couldn’t help but see the similarities in our own culture today.

In fact, Libba Bray wrote about the current political climate at the end of her Author’s Note, and I thought it beautifully summed up her novel and the living horror story we currently live in:

“We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity.

We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realties exist side by side. It is our past and our present. The future is unwritten.

This is a book about ghosts.

For we live in a haunted house.”

And as messed up as her message may have sounded, it is very true. The fact that someone out there is brave enough to put it in writing and send it out in the world gives me some kind of hope for the New Year.

Libba also does a great job at diversifying her characters. Though I am positive there are plenty of other books out there with asexual characters, this book is the first book I’ve ever read that featured an asexual character prominently. Also, this character is not defined by her asexuality. She mentions the fact that she doesn’t really need physical love, just the mental love of being with someone and then that’s it. She doesn’t bring it up again nor does it become a driving force in her character. Her sexuality doesn’t overwhelm the other characteristics Libba had developed over the course of the series much like Evie’s heterosexuality doesn’t overwhelm her character nor does Henry’s homosexuality overwhelm his.

The not so good: There are several reviewers on Goodreads who said that they felt that this book was an interlude, a filler, the middle child of the series. I somewhat agree with them. Don’t get me wrong, I still loved this book, but I can see where they’re coming from.

In the first Diviner’s novel The Diviners, Evie and the gang are trying to solve the mystery of supernatural murders all around New York. In the second novel, The Lair of Dreams, dozens of people are dying from the sleeping sickness and only the Diviners can stop it from happening. In Before the Devil Breaks You there isn’t one driving force to why the characters do what they do. Honestly, they’re trying to figure out who the driving force is and that does get very Scooby Doo-ish occasionally.

Also, the first two books were, frankly, terrifying. Not many books scare me, but there were several nights I sat up a little while longer in bed scrolling through Facebook or Instagram to try and drive the images Libba beautifully crafted out of my head. Before the Devil Breaks You is not that scary. It still has its moments, but for the most part the ghosts we encounter are almost like the waves of henchmen you run into in the beginning of a level in a video game. You just haven’t quite hit the boss level yet.

That being said, I am STOKED to read the final book in the series. Though there is still no title, cover image, or release date this boss battle of an ending is sure to be good. Also the love triangle question was finally (maybe?) answered and I fucking love it. I’ve been really tired of romance in media lately, but sign me the fuck up for this romance.

Long story short:

· Libba Bray can do no wrong.

· Representation matters in all forms of entertainment

· History repeats itself, but it will (hopefully) get better

· Gimme dat final book, Libba. Gimme!

My Rating: 5/5 Duh.

***

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Pictures in this post were found here and here.