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A review by dan_ackerman
Daimonion by J.P. Jackson
2.0
I wanted to like this book. The whole time I was reading I desperately told myself that it would get better. After all, based on the reviews, a lot of people found this book really appealing. In the end, I have to say, this book was just not for me. The writing had an unsettling mix of short, choppy narration paired with exposition-heavy dialogue between the characters. With the multiple POV shifts, between characters and between first and third person and sometimes even in the same chapter, it could be difficult to keep track of who, exactly, was doing the narrating, leading to an instance where I initially thought Dati, a monstrous demon with a need for living flesh, had “squealed a little girlish freak-out noise.”
The main character, Dati, is a unique creature; he’s morose and desperately lonely, but also frustratingly vague about himself. We don’t know very much about his backstory. He’s not human, currently, but it was never clear if at some point he had been. He claims to have a soft spot for humans but doesn’t ever seem particularly kind or caring towards the humans he encounters. Except for Alyx; when he encounters Alyx as an adult, Dati immediately takes to him. Even when they haven’t even exchanged more than two sentences, Dati is promising that he’ll be there for Alyx no matter what. I’m not sure if the author was trying to indicate that these two men are bonded on some deeper level, but it read like a physical infatuation more than anything. In fact, the other relationship that blooms in this, between a witch and a shapeshifter, also happens instantaneously and with little explanation.
The reader ends up with a lot of explanation of some things (and sometimes the same explanation twice), but other elements of the plot are frustratingly vague. In the end, the Big Bad from the whole novel is dispatched with astounding ease, only to be replaced by someone introduced at the very end of the story as the only hope preventing the apocalypse. Her betrayal is mildly foreshadowed, but she’s assisted by two characters whose only motivations seem to be ‘he’s angry his boyfriend died’ and ‘he can see the future.’
It wasn’t all bad. I think there was a lot of potential here, especially as someone’s first novel. While I was reading, I got the impression that this story might have worked a lot better as visual media, either a graphic novel or movie. I was frankly disappointed that this was billed as a horror novel; as a long-time horror junkie, maybe I’m numb to things that would turn the stomachs of a standard audience, but the horror in this seemed to come from long, blunt descriptions of violent acts paired with an unusual amount of incest subplots. But translated into images, that horror element might have been there and I think the characters would have shone through more; the author put a lot of effort and thought into this book and it shows.
The main character, Dati, is a unique creature; he’s morose and desperately lonely, but also frustratingly vague about himself. We don’t know very much about his backstory. He’s not human, currently, but it was never clear if at some point he had been. He claims to have a soft spot for humans but doesn’t ever seem particularly kind or caring towards the humans he encounters. Except for Alyx; when he encounters Alyx as an adult, Dati immediately takes to him. Even when they haven’t even exchanged more than two sentences, Dati is promising that he’ll be there for Alyx no matter what. I’m not sure if the author was trying to indicate that these two men are bonded on some deeper level, but it read like a physical infatuation more than anything. In fact, the other relationship that blooms in this, between a witch and a shapeshifter, also happens instantaneously and with little explanation.
The reader ends up with a lot of explanation of some things (and sometimes the same explanation twice), but other elements of the plot are frustratingly vague. In the end, the Big Bad from the whole novel is dispatched with astounding ease, only to be replaced by someone introduced at the very end of the story as the only hope preventing the apocalypse. Her betrayal is mildly foreshadowed, but she’s assisted by two characters whose only motivations seem to be ‘he’s angry his boyfriend died’ and ‘he can see the future.’
It wasn’t all bad. I think there was a lot of potential here, especially as someone’s first novel. While I was reading, I got the impression that this story might have worked a lot better as visual media, either a graphic novel or movie. I was frankly disappointed that this was billed as a horror novel; as a long-time horror junkie, maybe I’m numb to things that would turn the stomachs of a standard audience, but the horror in this seemed to come from long, blunt descriptions of violent acts paired with an unusual amount of incest subplots. But translated into images, that horror element might have been there and I think the characters would have shone through more; the author put a lot of effort and thought into this book and it shows.