The Devouring Gray (Devouring Gray, #1)

by Christine Lynn Herman

[dragononabook]

Wow. Okay. There are a ton of things I love about this book, and very few things I didn't.

Firstly, I loved the setting. Creepy magical town in a forest in the middle of nowhere? Sign me right up. The contrast between the Gray and Four Paths was great, what with parallels and foreshadowing, and I think that extra layer of magic really made the story stand out. The system of the rituals and the variations on the founders' powers was a really interesting part of the world building, and the connection to the Beast (which I hope will be more developed) made the powers and their consequences very dynamic. Also, I love the connection the name Four Paths has to the plot itself :)

Usually I'm not a huge fan of books with multiple main characters, but I think Christine Lynn Herman balanced it really well. The interactions and relationships between the characters felt really organic, and well developed. There are also some relationships that I'm looking forward to seeing develop, namely Isaac and Violet; I can see them being really good friends to each other. I also have to admit that I lowkey ship Harper and Violet too.

The characters themselves were well thought out as well, and I especially liked how there was one for each founder, but not to the point when that's all that they were. I also liked how each of the main characters was an individual, and they didn't exist just to feed into each other. Even the side characters, and the characters who came in later, were well written, and I could definitely tell that there was a lot of thought put into them. My biggest problem with characters is I found Justin a little bit bland at times, and I think that May's status as a pseudo-main character but not really a PoV character meant that it was hard for me to sympathise with her.

The plot came together quite nicely, and there were some parallels that were spectacular, and some really good instances of foreshadowing that left me feeling very satisfied. I do feel like the deviation from the dead bodies to the big overarching issue with the Beast left some loose threads, but it wasn't a large part of the plot in the first place, and I'm assuming that there will be more about this in the sequel. There was no overuse of I liked how the ending could stand (relatively) by itself but also leave the reader wanting more (that ending though!).

TL;DR: If you enjoyed The Hazel Wood, This Savage Song, or thought The Raven Cycle should have been more creepy, read this book now. Also, I really, really need the sequel!