Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Page Count: 336
When someone told me this book was about biker gangs and magical elements (although it ended up being more like Urban Fantasy-ish …), I was all in without even seeking out more information. Admittedly, that might have been my first mistake.
While I did enjoy the general concept of the book, there were some aspects that I might have just not been prepared for but that really bothered me at times. Jemmie, the main character, deals with her lack of control over her powers by drinking alcohol at every turn. Look, I am really not a person who will condemn someone if they want to have a drink or two. You do you, but she basically just graduated High School and was already a borderline alcoholic. It worries her family, it worries her friends, everyone knows there’s some deeper rooted issue and obviously it doesn’t really help her much either. I understand that it is her coping mechanism, but reality is that she has a great support system and that her life would have been far easier if she just told the truth. (My biggest pet peeve in books is when people are unable to communicate!) Especially considering that she whined the entire first part over how much her ability to sense magic sucks, just to get over it with the blink of an eye with everyone thinking it’s the coolest power ever. It was infuriating, because it didn’t feel like progress or a learning curve, but rather like she had made it out to be a far bigger problem than it truly ever had been.
The other thing that bothered me a bit was the love triangle. To me, neither option was a particularly good one and the whole affair was rather predictable. I just really wish we could stop romanticizing the douchebag that cannot deal with his emotions and tries to protect the love interest by pushing her away, hurting her emotionally and sometimes even physically. I am all for vulnerable and emotionally complex boys, but Crowe’s behavior made it really difficult for me to like him at all, nevermind actually root for him.
I know I made this book sound a lot worse than it actually was, because despite it all, I DID enjoy Devils & Thieves. While I may have gotten a tad confused from time to time with the terminology, I think there’s some great magical world building in there. There’s a rich family history and mythology still worth exploring and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious what will happen in the next book.
It also helped a lot that Devils & Thieves was very fast paced. I legit read it in one sitting and was fine with it. So, while it definitely wasn’t one of my favorite reads, I still think there’s quite a bit of potential in this story. If I could wish for certain things to happen in the sequel, it would be that it stayed on the dark and magical path the first book ended on. That they would dive more into the biker gang dynamic (people rode more cars than bikes and other than the lingo there really wasn’t much to that element) and maybe ease up on the tropey-ness of it all. I would love to not actually be able to guess what might happen next!
Fazit: 3/5 stars! If you don’t mind a bit of predictability and cliché love story, this might be for you!
Have you heard of Devils & Thieves? Is it something you’d be interested in?
Life and Other Disasters 
So a nice but not great one! Well, it happens and sometimes it’s okay! Love triangles bore me, even when done well xD
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I am a little sad that this was the first read of the year, because it could have been so much better, but then, I guess, it could also have been worse haha
Love triangles work VERY rarely for me these days. This one was just tedious.
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Ugh, I hate it so much as well when characters aren’t just ABLE TO COMMUNICATE, it drives me so mad haha.
I am glad to hear that there still was an interesting world-building to the book! I don’t think that one has enough of my attention for me to actually add it to my TBR, but I’m glad it was still an okay read for you, Kat ❤
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Literally 3/4 of the story would have been resolved if Jemmie had just told ANYONE (literally don’t care who) what she was going through. It’s just frustrating to read and her excuses weren’t really good either.
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I get it. It’s the kind of thing that makes me want to throw a book across the room haha
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See the description of biker gangs and magical realism drew me in immediately, but there’s a lot of the things you mentioned in your review that have kind of put me off. I’m really not a fan of love triangles, I mean yes they can be well written but there’s something about them that always bugs me no matter how well written they are. Also I really really hate it when characters don’t communicate with each other. It just makes me want to yell at the book for them to actually talk, the only exception was The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and even I’m not sure why that was an exception.
I’m glad you were able to enjoy parts of this book Kat, even if overall it wasn’t as good as you’d maybe hoped. Great review as well. 🙂
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Sorry for this suuuuuper delayed reply! Your comment somehow ended up in spam and I check that way too rarely 😦
Anyway, magical realism and gangs sound so cool, right? I wish this would have worked more for me. The end was quite dark and I enjoy when books go where others may not expect it to go, so I still might continue with the series. However, those issues I had were big ones, which won’t make it a priority along the road. (And I might just forget about it hahaha that happened with the sequel to A Shadow Bright and Burning, so I am always very fickle about these things)
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That’s all right. I did have an issue with my comments going into spam a little while ago. This must have been one of them. 🙂
Yeah it does sound interesting. Honestly it was never on my radar before your review so I may not ever get around to it myself but it is on my radar now. Maybe if the second book is better I can be convinced. I get what you mean I’m fickle about those things as well! 😀
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Oh yeah, WordPress seems to put everyone in spam quarantine every once in a while. It’s so silly.
I’ll definitely write a review when/if I get to the sequel!
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Hmph yeah I can see why that would be infuriating- I can’t stand when things could be solved by simple communication! And ugh love triangles instantly annoy me. I’m glad it was still enjoyable overall though. Great review!
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Jemmie’s powers played a big role in the scheme of things overall but that wouldn’t have changed if she had told someone about them. It would have just made her personal torment easier, what a wild concept, eh?
The world was still interesting though and I am really intrigued about what would happen in the sequel.
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Ah that makes sense. hahah yes, completely 😉 Well that’s cool at least 🙂
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[…] that’s that! I tag: Nel, Beth, A Book Calls, Melanie, Lucinda, Kat, Dragons & Zombies, Dani, Zezee, Emily, Katie @Never Not Reading, Anna, Cynic on […]
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Hello! I tagged you in the K-Pop Book Tag! (Its the top post on my blog, which I typed in the blog section)
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Thanks so much for that! I don’t know anything about K-Pop haha but I’ll take a look.
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