I received an ebook as part of a blog tour I am no longer part of in exchange for my honest opinion
Genre: Fantasy Age Range: YA Star Rating: 2 stars Series: Yes - book 1
Synopsis:
Philip is a good boy, a really good boy, who accidentally gets sent to Hell to become the Devil’s heir. The Devil, Lucifer, is dying and desperately in need of a successor, but there’s been a mistake and Philip is the wrong boy.
Philip is terrible at being bad, but Lucifer has no other choice than to begin the difficult task of training him in the ways of evil. Philip gets both friends and enemies in this odd, gloomy underworld—but who can he trust, when he discovers an evil-minded plot against the dark throne?
Synopsis taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
I was a little hesitant picking this book up, because of the premise. At first, it seemed like it would be OK. It had a very weird, surreal feeling – a combination of the prose and the premise. It was… strange. Like those psychedelic art piece from the 60s and 70s.
Then he dies, goes to hell accidentally and I really started to struggle.
I simply couldn’t detach my faith from the book, couldn’t read it impartially. This meant, as soon as he arrives in Hell and the devil is trying to explain why hell is a good and necessary thing, I was flung straight from the story.
That aside, I couldn’t connect to the main character.
In the beginning, Philip is too good. He’s being bullied and yet isn’t mad at anyone – not even the boy who locks him in a room with the bully. There was nothing to latch onto about him, nothing I could recognise in him. Even his literal save the cat moment was surrounded by him being too nice. The start contrast of him against everyone else in hell make his niceness too obvious. He has to have “white lies” explained to him.
Then he goes evil, all over a girl. It was impossible to tell if I was supposed to be pleased that he was finally succeeding as the devil’s heir, or shocked at how cruel he was becoming in the span of nights. I thought it was longer at first, because it was impossible to have such a quick change of character, but it was practically overnight. And it’s all over a girl, when he feels very pre-pubescent.
This book handles suicide awfully. It’s a throwaway moment, but it’s terrible and disrespectful. If anything, that makes it worse.
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 