Starred review from September 26, 2011
This powerful and decidedly uncomfortable dark fantasy concerns Daphne, a serious and introspective young woman who just happens to live in Hell, being the youngest daughter of Lucifer and Lilith. Pandemonium isn’t a bad place to live—“the city shines silver, as highly polished as a wish. The streets sprawl out in complicated spirals, winding between glossy buildings”—but Daphne feels like something is missing. She could go to Earth and seduce young men like her older half-sisters (the hunt made more delicious by the danger represented by Azrael, the sadistic angel of death, and his monstrous companion, Dark Dreadful), but she feels like such sexual goings-on are beneath her. Then, her brother Obie, Hell’s most notorious do-gooder, saves Truman Flynn, a teenage suicide, from death. Witnessing the boy’s brief, painful materialization in Hell, Daphne is taken with him; when Obie disappears on Earth, she enlists Truman to help find him. Yovanoff (The Replacement) once again develops complex, believable characters as well as a supernatural milieu that feels both original and lived in. This confident tale contains moments of beauty, terror, and significant wisdom. Ages 14–up. (Nov.)■
October 15, 2011
A dark love story between a girl from Hell and a boy from Earth, both with heavenly heritage. Daphne is royalty in Hell's city Pandemonium because she's the daughter of Lilith--Adam's first wife--and the fallen angel Lucifer. She's disconnected from her succubae sisters fathered by lesser demons and is closest to her eldest brother, Adam's son Obie. Instead of collecting souls for Hell, Obie's job is to save the Lost Ones, the half-human children of angels. But when Obie leaves Pandemonium for good only to go missing, Daphne's single lead is one of his last cases--Truman, a self-destructive, alcoholic teenager. The narration switches between Daphne's first person and Truman's close third, providing characterization through each other's eyes while affirming the yin-yang quality of the pair: a girl who wants to feel and a boy who feels too much. The race to stay ahead of the angelic demon hunter Azrael and his beast, Dark Dreadful, along with solving the mystery behind Obie's disappearance, balance out the introspective elements of the story. Although the lush descriptions occasionally edge into gothic purple prose, they create beauty in both gritty locations and violent gore alike. The pace accelerates in the last act as the characterizations converge with the plot. A dreamy, atmospheric take on Judeo-Christian mythology that prioritizes character. (Paranormal romance. 13 & up)
(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
December 1, 2011
Gr 9 Up-Daphne's home life is Hell. Literally. The daughter of Lilith and Lucifer, the sensitive teen feels out of place. When her adored older brother, Obie, abandons Hell to be with a girl he met on Earth, Daphne does what she has never done before. In order to find him and warn him of imminent danger, she leaves Hell, too. Once on Earth, Daphne seeks help from Truman, a self-destructive teenage boy whose incessant nightmares spur him to dangerous excesses in order to stay awake. As they work together to find Obie, besting a demon or two along the way, Daphne learns to appreciate and cultivate her humanity, the very thing that alienates her from her family. This bildungsroman features a sympathetic, believable protagonist who learns, changes, and grows. Daphne shrinks from the future planned for her, that of being like her ravenous older sisters, the Lilim, who live off the pain of weak men. Yovanoff's writing distinguishes itself with its inlay of eloquent and imaginative passages about life in Pandemonium (the sleek, metallic capital city of Hell), Daphne's sometimes-comic acclimations to life on Earth, Truman's tragic story arc, and the tender romance that develops between them.-Jennifer Prince, Buncombe County Public Library, NC
Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 1, 2011
Grades 9-12 It takes moxie to set the first act of your novel in Hell, but Yovanoff does just that, and with a confidence that suggests she might have taken a vacation there at some point. Daphne, Lucifer's daughter, is bored and unhappy in the steel cityscape of Pandemonium when the escape of her brother, Obie, to Earth compels her to chase him down. She has never been to Earth before, and its grimy realness is intoxicating. To find Obie she must help a self-loathing teen alcoholic named Truman. Not only does Truman's pain and anguish tempt her to drink of his spirit (as is the habit of her vamp seductress sisters), but she finds herself pitted against the brutal angel Azrael. This novel is saddled with a number of the standard tropes of modern paranormal romance, but Yovanoff's ability to tantalizingly draw back the curtainjust a littleon hideous metal-and-flesh monstrosities is used here to the same chilling effect as seen in The Replacement (2010). Largely unsentimental, this is a breath of fresh (or fetid?) air for the genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
January 1, 2012
It certainly isn't easy being the daughter of a demon and a fallen angel, but Daphne didn't quite realize how protected she was inside Pandemonium, a city in Hell, until her favorite sibling, Obie, disappears on Earth, likely having fallen victim to the vengeful demon hunter Azrael. Daphne quickly ascertains that a self-destructive mess of a boy, Truman, is the likeliest candidate to help her find her brother: Truman was one of Obie's last human-angel misfit cases, but she needs to sober him up and keep him alive long enough to actually assist her. The alternating narration from the first-person voice of Daphne, who is clear in her mission even while she is scrambling to understand Earth, to the close third-person used with Truman is highly effective in showing how dissimilar their perspectives and worlds truly are, and romantics will find their eventual, hard-earned love even more compelling for the many distances between them. The harsh steel beauty of Pandemonium, particularly when juxtaposed with the gritty sludge that is most of what Daphne sees of Earth (though she revels in the "aliveness" of it all) will inevitably evoke questions of which is more hellish, and the climax further blurs the lines. april spisak
(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
January 1, 2012
Daphne, daughter of a demon and a fallen angel, leaves Hell to search for her favorite sibling, whos missing on Earth. She ascertains that a self-destructive mess of a boy, Truman, is the likeliest candidate to help. Alternating perspective shows how dissimilar their worlds are, and romantics will find their eventual, hard-earned love even more compelling for the many distances between them.
(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)