Book Review: Devilish

As one or two of you may have noticed, I am on a John Green kick. I read all his books, and am working my way through the Brotherhood 2.0 videos, and I pre-ordered his upcoming novel (written with David Levithan who you'll know from Nick and Norah).

In the process of watching the B2.0 videos, I noticed Maureen Johnson (blog here, website here) showing up in a few of John's videos, because the two of them were both part of the same writing group, along with Scott Westerfeld (Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras, should I keep going?) and some other YA authors (how cool would that be?).

I'd read Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes, and I decided to read some more of her stuff because that would allow me to further avoid reading Catching Fire (and therefore I could continue to avoid finshing Catching Fire) and the other Rosie books I'm not in the mood for right now. Like the football one.

I swear, I'll get there.

So I looked online and saw that she's written several other titles, including one that some people tried to ban.

Okay.

That just put her on my must-read list. Nobody bans books around me. No. Way.

So I ordered some of her other works and started working on the ones we have.

Today I finished Devilish


In Devilish, Jane's friend Allison goes from being unpopular and somewhat akward to looking like a supermodel overnight. Jane feels pushed out, and then she discovers that Allison has changed like this due to a pact she made with a new girl at school, who turns out to be a demon.

It's a retelling of the Faust tale, guy meets devil, devil gives guy all he wants, guy finds out deal was horrible and wants out, guy finds out there is no way out. Except this one had a happy ending, although I won't tell you why or how.

I will tell you it involved a hundred-something year old demon fighter love interest for Jane.

Which worked, and that's a marvel.

Jane worked well as a narrator, she had believable reactions to the freaky things she was exposed to (including a bad breakup), she was funny, good with her family, and she wielded the Steak Knife of Righteousness with great valor. First person narration was a good choice for Johnson! The novel had just the right amount of action, not too much focus on the evil demon girl (and the way that whole scenario works for her), and it was just plain fun.

I hope you all give it a try, especially those of us who like a little touch of fantasy to our reality.