The Devouring Grey Book Review
The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman
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?
Initially, I wasn’t entirely certain about the concept of The Devouring Gray. The premise intrigued me, but there have been a fair few sort of urban fantasy novels recently that didn’t live up to my expectations and I was concerned this would be another one to add to that same shelf. However, one of the girls in my whatsapp chat mentioned that she really enjoyed the book, and I decided I’d give it a go in the lead up to YALC, where Christine was signing this year.
And actually, I rather enjoyed it. The pacing of the novel was quite quick, although there were some sections here and there where I didn’t have too much difficulty putting it down. Overall though, I got through the book very fast and there was a lot of tension and drama going on so I usually didn’t struggle for more than a chapter or so at any point. And I liked that each POV character had a very distinctive voice. My personal favourite was Violet, if only because she was new to the town and so I got to find out a lot through her. I was curious to see why some of the characters don’t get their own perspective chapters, however I think by the end of the book it was pretty easy to see why this had to happen. Also, the last 20 pages or so had me totally hooked and that ending was stunningly good.
The actual development of the characters is also really good. I liked seeing their individual arcs and how they all change over time to overcome or fall prey to their own shortcomings and histories. There’s a lot of connections between the characters and I like that their relationships and history with one another was so well fleshed out. None of the characters felt cardboard or forgettable. The dialogue and interactions between them were also hilarious, and I often found myself chuckling as I read. For that reason, my favourite character is probably Isaac, because he reminds me a lot of Ronan Lynch from Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle and he’s possibly one of my favourite characters ever.
I will say, the only main thing I had a bit of an issue with throughout the novel was the magic system. Although I liked the concept of it, and how there’s a kind of hierarchy structure at play which generates a lot of tension, one of my main gripes is that I often didn’t understand how magic functioned in this world. It’s possible that I got the wrong end of the stick with it, but I’m still not sure even now. Initially, it seemed as though the families all had abilities based on their ancestors and their kind of house symbol. However, I was soon confused when one member of one family had the power to see bits of the future while another had a totally different power. While the tarot reading type power made sense in some ways since the deck was made out of thin pieces of wood and their family was the Hawthornes, I didn’t really understand how the other person’s power connected with the family symbol at all.
Furthermore, a lot of the stuff about magic just isn’t explained at all, which can sometimes prove a bit frustrating. One of the issues with a mysterious magic system is that it can lead to a lot of problems just being solved because magic made it so. I don’t really like books which use it as a deus ex machina whenever the plot calls for it. And although The Devouring Gray never quite got to that stage, there were moments where I felt magic was used to simply gloss over some of the issues the characters faced. It’s hard to give examples without spoiling anything about the book though. Overall, I did still like the way the magic functioned in the book, even though some of it doesn’t make sense and I still have a lot of questions [although tbf I feel this might be just because the characters themselves don’t always have answers either]. The concept of it is really cool and I am still curious to see where the next book goes with it though.
One of the things I did really fall in love with too is the gorgeously creepy descriptions and settings. At one point I had literal chills running down my spine. It’s not often I get unsettled by books, but this one was so atmospheric and spooky that I felt like I was right there in the town.
Overall, I’m giving The Devouring Gray:
I thought the descriptions, dialogue and characters were stunning, but there were moments where the pacing stuttered a little and I wasn’t overly enthralled by the magic system.
Has anyone else read this book already or plans to? What do you all think of it? Let me know in the comment section down below ❤
