Well, I think I’ve put this review off long enough, and it will be a short one, since our fantastic discussion last month covered a LOT of ground.
The Devourers is certainly an original take on werewolves, I’ll give it that, but this book was just not for me.
I get intellectually what it was going for, and in parts I was engaged, but overall, I just didn’t care. At the beginning of the book, I actively disliked it. As many have said in their reviews, for me it got better once the book switched narrators to the female character, Cyrah. And even then, I still didn’t *really* care, maybe because by that time the book had already lost my trust. Perhaps if the whole book had been written from Cyrah’s perspective, but the author clearly was going for something a bit more ambitious than just a story about one woman. He wanted to span lots of time, and comment on things I guess he couldn’t have without multiple narrators or a frame story.
It kind of upsets me that I think a better book could have been made of this, if it had just been about Cyrah, so I’m going to stop thinking about it now.
This book is also . . . intense. The imagery, the violence. And it abounds with toxic masculinity. Ultimately, while this wasn’t really to my taste, I saw its purpose, and it didn’t bother me. It’s very much a style thing, and one style doesn’t (can’t, shouldn’t) work for everyone.
I don’t know if I would read any books by this author in the future. This was his first book, and first books can be rough, so I guess I won’t say no. But any book of his will have to be properly vetted by people I trust first. They shall be my book guinea pigs.
[2.5 stars]