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chronicallybookish 's review for:
Devil in the Device
by Lora Beth Johnson
Quick Stats
Age Rating:
Overall: 4 stars
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
A special thanks to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an eARC of Devil in the Device! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
This review covers the series as a whole and does not contain any spoilers for either book!
I really enjoyed this series and I think more people need to read it!
When Andra wakes up in her cryotank almost 1000 years later than she was supposed to, everything is absolutely crazy. Everyone she had ever known is gone, and the people who are there think she’s some kind of goddess—and if she doesn’t manage to convince them that she is one, they’ll kill her.
The premise and plot of this series sounded SO GOOD and I was so excited to pick it up. At first, it was hard for me to get into the first book. I was really interested in what was going on, but the writing threw me off, and I worried that I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the book because of that.
Because this book takes place some 1200 years in the future, the author decided to give the native people a new dialect. Now I read a decent bit of fantasy and scifi. I’m used to a bit of new slang thrown around. This was not that. The grammar rules changed. Not a single sentence written in Zhade’s POV was in correct modern day english, and any time anyone other than Andra spoke, it was in this fictive dialect. It was an interesting choice. I was able to get over it, but it took me the majority of the first book to get to that point. When I was about 1/3 of the way through I had a small crisis because I couldn’t remember how real English worked for a second.
An example of the dialect:
Instead of the words “okay/right/etc” the Erensedians used the term “evens”.
Many words were shortened, letters were changed so that words still sounded similar enough but were spelled differently, and some words were combined.
Any word ending in “ly” was replaced with “ish”. For example, “she laughed loudly” would be “she laughed loudish.” Merely = mereish. Quietly = quietish.
Any word ending in “ous” instead ended in “ful”. Ie: dangerous = dangerful.
There was a change to the suffix of words ending in “ful” too but I forget.
There were other changes to grammar structures of sentences, word makeup, and more that I can’t even get into.
It was a lot, and definitely an interesting choice. I can’t say it was my favorite. But, because the premise sounded so good, I pushed through and eventually was able to be mostly immune to the writing, and I’m very glad that was the case, because this series was really good. I loved Andra, Zhade, Lew-Eaden,Doon, Lilibet, and Kiv. I loved the plot and every plot twist had me shocked and excited and was executed so well. The books were so great once you get past the weird dialect of the Erensedians, but I know for a lot of people, that’s going to be a deal breaker and I find that unfortunate, because truly, it is otherwise a great book.
There is great plus-sized rep, which is rare in YA, but especially in the SFF genres. Andra is also 1/2 South East Asian. I’m not sure if the author is half Asian as well. I couldn’t find anything that says she is, but I can’t be sure. In the second book we are also introduced to a d/Deaf character. He is good rep in general, but objectively speaking, I’m not sure how adequately one can be a guard if you can’t hear anything? Wouldn’t that cause you to miss some things much easier than your hearing counterparts? I’m not sure, but I still absolutely adored his character as well as the handling of disability and/or d/Deaf representation. (Some d/Deaf people consider themselves a part of the disability community and some do not).
Zhade and Andra’s relationship, at first, felt a little unnatural to me. I didn’t feel any chemistry between them, and it felt like it was just there because “YA books need romance to be marketable” or something, but I did become invested in their relationship and could sense the chemistry between them in book two.
I definitely recommend this book, and I recommend that you at least try to push through the awkward language choice if it throws you off at first—the story is worth it.
Age Rating:
Overall: 4 stars
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
A special thanks to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an eARC of Devil in the Device! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
This review covers the series as a whole and does not contain any spoilers for either book!
I really enjoyed this series and I think more people need to read it!
When Andra wakes up in her cryotank almost 1000 years later than she was supposed to, everything is absolutely crazy. Everyone she had ever known is gone, and the people who are there think she’s some kind of goddess—and if she doesn’t manage to convince them that she is one, they’ll kill her.
The premise and plot of this series sounded SO GOOD and I was so excited to pick it up. At first, it was hard for me to get into the first book. I was really interested in what was going on, but the writing threw me off, and I worried that I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy the book because of that.
Because this book takes place some 1200 years in the future, the author decided to give the native people a new dialect. Now I read a decent bit of fantasy and scifi. I’m used to a bit of new slang thrown around. This was not that. The grammar rules changed. Not a single sentence written in Zhade’s POV was in correct modern day english, and any time anyone other than Andra spoke, it was in this fictive dialect. It was an interesting choice. I was able to get over it, but it took me the majority of the first book to get to that point. When I was about 1/3 of the way through I had a small crisis because I couldn’t remember how real English worked for a second.
An example of the dialect:
Instead of the words “okay/right/etc” the Erensedians used the term “evens”.
Many words were shortened, letters were changed so that words still sounded similar enough but were spelled differently, and some words were combined.
Any word ending in “ly” was replaced with “ish”. For example, “she laughed loudly” would be “she laughed loudish.” Merely = mereish. Quietly = quietish.
Any word ending in “ous” instead ended in “ful”. Ie: dangerous = dangerful.
There was a change to the suffix of words ending in “ful” too but I forget.
There were other changes to grammar structures of sentences, word makeup, and more that I can’t even get into.
It was a lot, and definitely an interesting choice. I can’t say it was my favorite. But, because the premise sounded so good, I pushed through and eventually was able to be mostly immune to the writing, and I’m very glad that was the case, because this series was really good. I loved Andra, Zhade, Lew-Eaden,Doon, Lilibet, and Kiv. I loved the plot and every plot twist had me shocked and excited and was executed so well. The books were so great once you get past the weird dialect of the Erensedians, but I know for a lot of people, that’s going to be a deal breaker and I find that unfortunate, because truly, it is otherwise a great book.
There is great plus-sized rep, which is rare in YA, but especially in the SFF genres. Andra is also 1/2 South East Asian. I’m not sure if the author is half Asian as well. I couldn’t find anything that says she is, but I can’t be sure. In the second book we are also introduced to a d/Deaf character. He is good rep in general, but objectively speaking, I’m not sure how adequately one can be a guard if you can’t hear anything? Wouldn’t that cause you to miss some things much easier than your hearing counterparts? I’m not sure, but I still absolutely adored his character as well as the handling of disability and/or d/Deaf representation. (Some d/Deaf people consider themselves a part of the disability community and some do not).
Zhade and Andra’s relationship, at first, felt a little unnatural to me. I didn’t feel any chemistry between them, and it felt like it was just there because “YA books need romance to be marketable” or something, but I did become invested in their relationship and could sense the chemistry between them in book two.
I definitely recommend this book, and I recommend that you at least try to push through the awkward language choice if it throws you off at first—the story is worth it.