The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

[lightreads]

The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Sequel to The Demon’s Lexicon. More demons, more magicians, more shenanigans, definitely more brothers.



I am further impressed by the underlying cleverness and sharpness of this series. We all – by which I mean sneering hipster book reviewers with more than two brain cells to rub together – can explain at great length why Twilight and its young adult paranormal spawn are terrible for their intended audience because they portray creepy or frankly abusive male behavior as sexy or romantic. (Just don’t ask what I was reading at fifteen, okay?) And that genuinely is why I can’t stand a lot of paranormal romance: the book says, “he’s following you everywhere because he wants to protect you and that means he loooooves you,” and I think, “oh my God get a restraining order you idiot.”



And the thing about this series is that Brennan reverses everything on me. One of her protagonists is a sociopath, full stop. There’s only one person in the world he loves, in the broken, obsessive, dependent way he can manage. Everyone else he hurts because he doesn’t know better, or just because he enjoys it.



And I pulled for him so hard. For his painful attempts to change, for someone just to give him the obnoxious hug he will never actually want, and yes, for his stupid doomed teenaged kissing subplot. This book knows him without flinching. I would catch myself thinking, “oh, come on, just give him a chance, he can change,” and the book would turn around and say, “no he can’t. You know he can’t. This is how he was made. Loving him isn’t going to fix him, it’s just going to suck.” But with compassion, which is what makes it all work.



Also, this book did something spoilery that so clearly grocked disability as a core identity component, rather than a tragical affliction of tragicalness. Color me impressed again.



View all my reviews

Comments

[cahn]

And I pulled for him so hard. For his painful attempts to change

Yeah, this. And he can change. Not much, and not very far, but he is trying so hard, and when he gets those tiny tiny little steps you (I) just want to cheer so much! This is what distinguishes him from, oh, Edward. (Uh. I checked out my brain halfway through Twilight; did Edward ever have any sort of character development at all from stalker 100-year-old boy? No, didn't think so.)

Related: see also my review where I have this whole rant/rave on what SRB is doing with her different approaches to humanity and what it means to be human. (This is charlie_ego on LJ, by the way, using the DW invite you so kindly provided.) I think she is doing some really great stuff, down in the depths of the book where it's not necessarily immediately obvious, that I don't see nearly enough of in YA, even some of the stuff I quite like.

Okay, I wanna know the spoilery thing!

[lightreads]

I've never actually read Twilight. I didn't have to because my roommate read all four books and I could just kind of ride along.

The spoilery thing is how Nick really really wants to make Alan's leg better. And how it emerges through the book that the person this is about is Nick, not Alan. And then that perfect moment when Alan's leg reverts back, and he just kind of shrugs and says well, he was used to it, and it's part of him now. That just rings so true to me -- that it is the nondisabled character who can't cope with the disability, and the disabled character who has a complete, integrated identity around it.

Thanks for the link -- I hadn't read that since I was avoiding spoilers for this like crazy.

[cahn]

Oh, DUH. It has indeed been too long since I read this (and my sister has my copy right now) or I would've remembered that immediately. Yeah. That's really cool.