The Devouring Gray

By: Christine Lynn Herman

Narrated by: Sarah Beth Goer

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

After the death of her sister, 17-year-old Violet Saunders finds herself dragged to Four Paths, New York. She may be a newcomer, but her mother isn't: They belong to one of the revered founding families of the town, where stone bells hang above every doorway and danger lurks in the depths of the woods.

Justin Hawthorne's bloodline has protected Four Paths for generations from the Gray - a lifeless dimension that imprisons a brutal monster. After Justin fails to inherit his family's powers, his mother is determined to keep this humiliation a secret. But Justin can't let go of the future he was promised and the town he swore to protect.

Ever since Harper Carlisle lost her hand to an accident that left her stranded in the Gray for days, she has vowed revenge on the person who abandoned her: Justin Hawthorne. There are ripples of dissent in Four Paths, and Harper seizes an opportunity to take down the Hawthornes and change her destiny.

The Gray is growing stronger every day, and its victims are piling up. When Violet accidentally unleashes the monster, all three must band together with the other founders to unearth the dark truths behind their families' abilities, before the Gray devours them all.

©2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC (P)2019 Dreamscape Media, LLC

I loved this book!

This book was so entertaining! It's like Stranger Things meets Vampire Diaries but everyone's bi. I fell for Christine's tricks every single time and was consistently surprised. If you want something spooky and sad, full of funny, smart-ass characters, then I recommend this book.

Third Time Was Not The Charm

Okay, I admit I fell asleep during my first listen. After two more times, the story went all over the place and the characters were so similar I had to write their names down to keep them straight. It seemed like the writer couldn't decide when to stop writing. The "monster" was where????? I'd rather have a tangible being or entity with some type of back story at least. Very disappointed with this choice and will be returning it back to Audible.

Don’t recommend for adults

This was an ok book: it felt a bit teenage angsty for me, though. Particularly the bisexual element, which didn’t seem integral to the story. I’ve read the Twilight saga, and enjoyed that more. It had more character development and with this book, given the title, I felt the story was a bit thin. It wasn’t awful, just not great.

Narrator almost ruined a great story

As a whole i felt the story was creative and enjoyable but the narrator was almost unbearable. I came close to stopping this book on several occasions simply because i could hardly stand to listen to the reader. For a reference point, Ive listened to months worth of audio books and this has been the first book I've ran into that issue with. My wife actually quit listening for the exact same reason.

Its as if the story is being read entirely through clenched teeth. On top of that it gets worse whenever there is a male character speaking. The narrator will deepen her voice, exaggerate the clenched teeth, and begin reading almost like she's in pain. This began to have a nails on chalkboard effect for me.

I don't want to totally destroy the audiobook though because despite the horrendous reading i was able to push through because i was so intreaged with the story. It was clear this is a first time writer and i had some smaller issues with how certain things were handled but as a whole i found the story to be very captivating and inventive.

Fun premise, but some aspects felt forced

I'm glad I read this book, but I felt that the author forced a f ew unneeded aspects without using the "show it, don't tell it" guide of writing.
Instead of allowing the reader to learn about a character through actions or visible descriptions, I was pulled out of the immersion when the author would pointedly state a character is bi out the blue, Which is fine, but it felt very forced. Whenever that aspect of the character would become plot-relevant, it felt like it was "tacked on" to appeal to a wider demographic. If it's important a character has a specific orientation, let the reader discover it rather than haphazardly slapping a flashing red label on it and calling it prose,
I want to see more representation in all forms of media, but I don't think this book gets that across in a way that was successful - at least for me.