A review by elwirax
The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The marketing for this book was almost everything I could've asked for: enemies to lovers, dark academia, ghosts and demons but it didn't deliver anything to make me care about the characters or plot. I was not convinced by the romance, it was very insta lovey and made me cringe more often than I could count. The dialogue and monologues felt very repetitive, melodramatic and on the low end of YA which isn't what I was expecting going in.
I was hoping for more worldbuilding especially on the witch aspects ( are there more of them , are there administrations to control them? etc) but nothing was explained and Eliot's magic almost seemed useless. This leads me to the point that The Devil Makes Three suffers a lot from a pacing issue. It takes 40% for things to start getting somewhere and even then it dragged. Additionally,certain resolutions were just too simple considering the things they had to go through.
I was hooked on the idea of a horror novel set in a boarding school and therefore, expected the book to focus on the horror aspects. However, the romance overshadowed this to the point that even the Devil/ Truth character seemed underdeveloped and rather childish. I suppose this is my time to stop expecting too much from YA horror.
Overall, It's a shame I didn't end up enjoying The Devil Makes Three as much as I'd hoped. The only thing I liked was the open-ended epilogue and that's about it.
I was hoping for more worldbuilding especially on the witch aspects ( are there more of them , are there administrations to control them? etc) but nothing was explained and Eliot's magic almost seemed useless. This leads me to the point that The Devil Makes Three suffers a lot from a pacing issue. It takes 40% for things to start getting somewhere and even then it dragged. Additionally,certain resolutions were just too simple considering the things they had to go through.
I was hooked on the idea of a horror novel set in a boarding school and therefore, expected the book to focus on the horror aspects. However, the romance overshadowed this to the point that even the Devil/ Truth character seemed underdeveloped and rather childish. I suppose this is my time to stop expecting too much from YA horror.
Overall, It's a shame I didn't end up enjoying The Devil Makes Three as much as I'd hoped. The only thing I liked was the open-ended epilogue and that's about it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Self harm, Chronic illness, Child death, and Death