The Devouring Gray

On the edge of town a beast haunts the woods, trapped in the Gray, its bonds loosening… Uprooted from the city, Violet Saunders doesn’t have much hope of fitting in at her new school in Four Paths, a town almost buried in the woodlands of rural New York. The fact that she’s descended from one of the town’s founders doesn’t help much, either—her new neighbours treat her with distant respect, and something very like fear. When she meets Justin, May, Isaac, and Harper, all children of founder families, and sees the otherworldly destruction they can wreak, she starts to wonder if the townsfolk are right to be afraid. When bodies start to appear in the woods, the locals become downright hostile. Can the teenagers solve the mystery of Four Paths, and their own part in it, before another calamity strikes?

The Devouring Gray by Christine Lynn Herman - release date April 2, 2019

Branches and stone, daggers and bones, this book was awesome!!!  If you know me, you know there are few things in this world that I love more than small upstate New York towns (mine would be Greenville-where my camp is!) and I also love reading about drama and secrets.  Any good book has to have its fair share of secrets and this one is packed full of ‘em!

Four Paths, New York, has four founding families and their descendants are the main characters.  I’m gonna start with Isaac because he was MY FAVORITE. He’s not even a main enough to have sections from his POV but whatever I still love him.  He’s got the classic edgy bad-boy vibes who also has a soft side that comes out when he’s with Violet :). He’s also reading all the time. Violet has been through so much through the loss of her sister.  Coming to a new town and discovering the people there aren’t as normal as they seem might be just what she needs to heal. Then there’s Justin and Harper, who don’t have powers but “should.” Justin Hawthorn basically runs the town and Harper is invisible in it.  They all need to set aside their differences and work together for their common cause of helping Violet.

The plot was intriguing, but I didn’t feel it pulling me in as much as I have with other books.  About halfway through, I was over it and wanted to start the next book in my TBR pile. However, if you stick it out, the ending is worth it.   

My favorite character was Isaac.  I WISH he had more sections told from his point of view besides just the epilogue because I love him.  I have a pretty strong feeling that the sequel is going to have a lot more of Isaac in it!! I also really want to see how him and Violet’s story is going to play out.  Some people like the tension where two characters clearly love each other but they each think the other one doesn’t like them so if that’s up your alley there’s a bunch of that in here for a bunch of couples.  Also like a majority of the characters were bi so that was cool! And I also loved how Harper doesn’t let her missing arm ruin her training; she has to relearn how to swordfight without her left arm. One thing though, I wish the Gray was actually spelled like the Grey.  “Devouring Grey” looks much more aesthetically pleasing since putting the “e” in Grey would match with the “e” in Devouring. But to each his own I guess. I also like the cover with the pink neon letters and road better than the cover shown at the top of this post. (I just looked it up; that’s the UK cover. AND THEY GET PINK PAGES!! No fair! Give that to us instead! If I get a final copy of this book I'm absolutely buying the UK version.)

I’d give this four stars.  It definitely had a Riverdale vibe to it so if you like Riverdale you would like this book!  I know I did. It also says for fans of Stranger Things and The Raven Boys by  Maggie Stiefvater.  I have not read The Raven Boys but I have seen Stranger Things and can confirm they’re similar (especially in the case of the overlapping dimensions/weird versions of the same world).  Took me 6 days to read.

-Taylor

Reviewed on March 19, 2019