Devils & Thieves by Jennifer Rush | Book Review

Title: Devils & Thieves

Author: Jennifer Rush

Series: Devils & Thieves #1

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal

Publisher: Little Brown Books

Publication date: October 3rd, 2017

Pages: 336

My rating: 

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Eighteen-year-old Jemmie Carmichael is surrounded by magic in the quiet town of Hawthorne, New York. In her world, magic users are called “kindled,” and Jemmie would count herself among them if only she could cast a simple spell without completely falling apart. It doesn’t help that she was also recently snubbed by Crowe—the dangerous and enigmatic leader of Hawthorne’s kindled motorcycle gang, the Devils’ League.

When the entire kindled community rolls into Hawthorne for an annual festival, a rumor spreads that someone is practicing forbidden magic. Then people start to go missing. With threats closing in from every side, no one can be trusted. Jemmie and Crowe will have to put aside their tumultuous history to find their loved ones, and the only thing that might save them is the very flaw that keeps Jemmie from fully harnessing her magic. For all her years of feeling useless, Jemmie may just be the most powerful kindled of all.

“No matter what I decided, it couldn’t erase the truth that ruled my life:

It was freaking painful to love something that didn’t want you in return.”

I really wish I could tell you I loved this book and it blew my mind, but the reality is that it was a pretty ‘meh’ book to me, which is so sad because I was really looking forward to read and adore it. The premise sounded amazing, and I hyped it up in my mind that I went with pretty high expectations into it, but I only was disappointed.

This novel was one of my most anticipated releases of this year. I saw the cover circulating my social medias and that caught my attention, because it seemed like a motorcycle type of book to me. But when I read that it was a fantasy one? I knew I had to read it. Turns out it wasn’t what I thought it would be, and there were a few things that made me feel unconfortable sometimes.

“You want me to tell you you’re perfect? I can’t. But I can tell you this: You’re brave enough to push through this. You’re strong enough not to let it hold you back. And that’s what actually matters.”

My main problem was that despite the premise being so innovative and unique, the book really wasn’t. It was filled of old YA tropes we all know of and have already read. The characters all were a bit plain and underdeveloped during most of the book, and though I quite enjoyed the ending, the other parts of the story were just pretty basic and average to me.

There was a love triangle in the book as well. Yes, you read me well. And it wasn’t a swoony one. I like love triangles when they are well developed, and you just can feel the angst when you’re reading the book *coughs* The Infernal Devices *coughs*. But this one? It was weird, not really well done and sometimes annoying, let’s be honest here. I didn’t particulary like any of the love interest: most of the times Crowe was a complete asshole that treated the protagonist quite poorly, and I DON’T CARE WHAT HIS REASONS WERE, I wanted to punch him sometimes. And well, the other guy only appeared when nothing was happening just to fill space.

And now let’s talk about out main character, shall we? What can I say about her, hmm? She wasn’t my favourite one, or one I loved reading from. She spent most of the time complaining about having two guys she’s interested in and who to choose, and the other parts about her powers. And that part wasn’t mind blowing but wasn’t the worst. I started to like her more toward the end of the book, because at the beginning she seemed to me like another female protagonist I’ve read about multiple times.

“She saw the devil for what he was. She saw the trails of love and hate and lust and power dangling from his mouth, and she knew she’d caught him at his breakfast.”

One thing that sometimes made me feel unconfortable was that due to do their magic, they have to cut themselves so they can bleed, because that magic only works when they’re bleeding. Does it ring a bell? Yup, so that made me connect less to the story. Also it took me a bit to understand this, because when the book started, I was a bit confused by all of this and the author didn’t really explain them that much, so I thought the “cuts” were some type of charms that they used to produce magic, but nope.

Most of the book was quite predictable to me, especially the big revelations that happened toward the end regarding the villain of the story. I don’t know if it occured the same to the ones of you who have read it, but to me everything was too obvious.

I have to say that despite not enjoyed the story that much, I quite liked the ending and the very last chapter, so I’m still debating wheter or not to continue with the series.

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