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Long Live Evil

4/5. A young woman dying of cancer is given the chance to go into her (sort of) favorite dark fantasy series. She arrives in the body of the villainess the night before her execution. But changing that changes all sorts of other things.

This was, on the one hand, delightful and absorbing. It’s obviously very metatextual – our protagonist is forever commenting on genre convention, sexism in fantasy, the shape of stories, etc. And it’s also very funny. There’s an “as foretold” joke in here that made me straight up cackle. Also, I detect some Tamsyn Muir DNA in here, if that’s an inducement.

On the other hand, this did not reward any look beyond the surface. I think it meant to, but I didn’t find anything that stuck to me in all the talk of stories and conventions and villainy. I’m not mad about it, to be clear. I still had a pretty great time. But I did think there could have been more. Maybe the sequel will provide.

Content notes: Zombies, violence, threatened rape, recollections of terminal illness.

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.



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