A review by vivianne
The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid
3.0
The Diabolic has been on my shelves for about 3 years now, and I kept putting it off to read it because I wasn’t that interested in it and to be honest I wish I had just unhauled it. This book is for some reason very hard to rate and review for me. And the reason is that I don’t really know what to think of it. It was fine I guess but not good or spectacular, more forgettable and neutral. So I will go through some of my thoughts while reading.
Contains spoilers!
I really loved the premises for this book, I expected an high tech action fantasy with sci-fi elements with a ruthless machine as a mc. And when I first started this book I got that, I really enjoyed the beginning with how Sidonya and Nemesis were bonded and how Nemesis is “raised”. I soon realized how brutal this book was going to be. And I really enjoyed the first few chapters of Nemesis going to the empire and for example the scene in the salt baths.
But after a while I got a bit bored, Nemesis all of a sudden grows empathy, which was weird for me since there is nothing that changed. Than the thing that kind of ruined this book for me was the romance. Nemesis is supposed to be a love less, killing machine. And she falls in LOVE????? I hated this so much! Furthermore it was insta-love, plus they said I love you after knowing each other for a week, and had no chemistry whatsoever. I also don’t understand it from Tyrus his part, why would he fall in love with Nemesis, she is a killing machine, has no character traits, has no personality.
There is a lot of death in this book that wasn’t necessary. Usually I am really a fan of this and I love when a YA tries to stand out and kill of a few characters so there is real tension for someone’s life in a tense situation. But here characters were killed that I had no chance to bond with yet, that didn’t need to be killed and would have been great characters to be a bit more part of the story. There are not that many side characters and I think if some of these would have been kept alive it would have been more of an enjoyable story for me: Sidonya, her parents, the etiquette marshal, Leather, Deadly, the grandmother and uncle of Tyrus and Amithy.
Another thing that was a bit “weird” was the world. I have no clue what so ever how to picture it and found it very underdeveloped. Some things were really cleverly thought off like the things in space that happened when a spaceship would explode and would cause like a black hole that they couldn’t go near. I liked some of the technology and the liked spaceships. However some things did not make any sense to me. Is this in the future? Is this a colony of people? Are they aliens? I felt that there was no explanation what people were doing there and what the emperor ruled exactly. Furthermore the altering of appearances was very confusing for me? And seems like a very inconvenient thing when you know someone and not recognize someone when they change their face very day. Some of the technology didn’t make sense that much.
Also, I did not enjoy whatsoever how this world handles genetically engineering. I guess Nemesis and Tyrus will probably solve that in the next book and it is an aspect of the book that the mc will rise against. However for me, as a biotechnologist, I was shocked that they created these animals, survators and diabolics just for show and entertainment of humans. The scene where Deadly was abused in the arena to kill this survator and taste his first blood so he would become a killing machine, was absolutely sickening. I know it’s a book, I know they will probably ban this in the next book, and that it’s something the “bad” guys in this book will only enjoy but still the way it was handled in this book made me sick and feel bad about myself.
I enjoyed the political game throughout this book between Tyrus, his grandmother and the uncle. I loved that Tyrus has kept himself alive with playing mad. I liked the strikes that they took towards each other and the tension that caused. Some things were just very clever and I enjoyed reading about this aspect of the book.
Nothing surprised me. I felt it coming that Tyrus was not a mad man, felt it coming that they were in love, that he didn’t kill Sidonya, that he would not let Nemisis die, Sidonya was still alive etc. etc. etc. This book was so, so predictable for me. That is what also happened in the end scene. I felt it coming miles away what would happen.
So unfortunately I won’t be continuing with this series and I will probably unhaul The diabolic.
Contains spoilers!
I really loved the premises for this book, I expected an high tech action fantasy with sci-fi elements with a ruthless machine as a mc. And when I first started this book I got that, I really enjoyed the beginning with how Sidonya and Nemesis were bonded and how Nemesis is “raised”. I soon realized how brutal this book was going to be. And I really enjoyed the first few chapters of Nemesis going to the empire and for example the scene in the salt baths.
But after a while I got a bit bored, Nemesis all of a sudden grows empathy, which was weird for me since there is nothing that changed. Than the thing that kind of ruined this book for me was the romance. Nemesis is supposed to be a love less, killing machine. And she falls in LOVE????? I hated this so much! Furthermore it was insta-love, plus they said I love you after knowing each other for a week, and had no chemistry whatsoever. I also don’t understand it from Tyrus his part, why would he fall in love with Nemesis, she is a killing machine, has no character traits, has no personality.
There is a lot of death in this book that wasn’t necessary. Usually I am really a fan of this and I love when a YA tries to stand out and kill of a few characters so there is real tension for someone’s life in a tense situation. But here characters were killed that I had no chance to bond with yet, that didn’t need to be killed and would have been great characters to be a bit more part of the story. There are not that many side characters and I think if some of these would have been kept alive it would have been more of an enjoyable story for me: Sidonya, her parents, the etiquette marshal, Leather, Deadly, the grandmother and uncle of Tyrus and Amithy.
Another thing that was a bit “weird” was the world. I have no clue what so ever how to picture it and found it very underdeveloped. Some things were really cleverly thought off like the things in space that happened when a spaceship would explode and would cause like a black hole that they couldn’t go near. I liked some of the technology and the liked spaceships. However some things did not make any sense to me. Is this in the future? Is this a colony of people? Are they aliens? I felt that there was no explanation what people were doing there and what the emperor ruled exactly. Furthermore the altering of appearances was very confusing for me? And seems like a very inconvenient thing when you know someone and not recognize someone when they change their face very day. Some of the technology didn’t make sense that much.
Also, I did not enjoy whatsoever how this world handles genetically engineering. I guess Nemesis and Tyrus will probably solve that in the next book and it is an aspect of the book that the mc will rise against. However for me, as a biotechnologist, I was shocked that they created these animals, survators and diabolics just for show and entertainment of humans. The scene where Deadly was abused in the arena to kill this survator and taste his first blood so he would become a killing machine, was absolutely sickening. I know it’s a book, I know they will probably ban this in the next book, and that it’s something the “bad” guys in this book will only enjoy but still the way it was handled in this book made me sick and feel bad about myself.
I enjoyed the political game throughout this book between Tyrus, his grandmother and the uncle. I loved that Tyrus has kept himself alive with playing mad. I liked the strikes that they took towards each other and the tension that caused. Some things were just very clever and I enjoyed reading about this aspect of the book.
Nothing surprised me. I felt it coming that Tyrus was not a mad man, felt it coming that they were in love, that he didn’t kill Sidonya, that he would not let Nemisis die, Sidonya was still alive etc. etc. etc. This book was so, so predictable for me. That is what also happened in the end scene. I felt it coming miles away what would happen.
So unfortunately I won’t be continuing with this series and I will probably unhaul The diabolic.