The Demon's Covenant (Demon's Lexicon Trilogy Series #2) Book

Final Verdict First:

I would've liked this book much more if I didn't go into it with expectations that didn't end up being met.

The Full Review:

I read The Demon's Lexicon almost a year ago, and although I've forgotten the details, what I do remember is really enjoying it. I especially loved Sarah's characterization, the love between both sets of siblings, and the ending. I liked it enough that The Demon's Covenant was one of my most anticipated releases of 2010.

A few months ago, there were several posts going around the book blogosphere about the unhealthy romances that have become very popular in YA these days. A couple of these posts indicated alternatives to the weak, passive, walk-all-over-me-I-don't-care-because-you're-hot female protagonists of these "bad" romances. The one example that stuck out to me was Mae from The Demon's Lexicon.

Here's the thing. I actually don't even remember Mae that much, besides that she had pink hair, would do anything for her brother, and had a serious thing going on for Nick. She didn't stand out to me the way the male characters did. But with the posts I mentioned above talking about her like she was in the same league as Kristin Cashore's protagonists, I set myself up to read The Demon's Covenant (which is told from Mae's point of view) with expectations of enjoying some good ole girl power moments.

That's not what happened. I'd have to go back and reread TDL, but the entire time I was reading TDC, I was thinking, "Did Mae change? Is she going to stand up to Nick this time? How about the next time? Umm, the time after that? What is going on here?!" You see, Mae is not some strong, independent, 21st century, don't mess with me, anti-everygirl protagonist. She's the typical piner, drooling over the wrong guy ' the one who is every bit the typical tall, dark (as in hair and eyes; Nick is as white as they come), uber hot, mysterious, brooding, dangerous, (did I say uber hot already?) supernatural love interest.

Which I get, to an extent. Let's be honest. A guy described as looking the way Nick does and being all good with weapons and able to defend his woman against the biggest, baddest forces of evil and all that is the epitome of the attractive alpha male. Most girls like this. I sure do.

But in some ways, Nick is worse than most YA supernatural alpha male love interests. The majority of them, even while wanting to suck your blood or eat your brains or whatever, are still nice to you. They may warn you away from them at the beginning, but they can't fight their attraction to you and they can't help but want to kiss you and hold your hand and love you. None of which applies to Nick.

Which is another problem of mine with TDC, because I remember being Nick's numero uno fan and actually empathizing with him in TDL ' but in TDC he's watered down to this unoriginal bad boy who yells at Mae, talks down to her, puts her down, and is generally rude to her. He also physically bullies Mae, getting into her personal space and crowding her, choking her, getting on top of her and pressing his weight on her, all while yelling or baring his teeth, taunting her, and trying to scare her away from him, "for her own good." At one point, he even invades her ' at her request!! She was frightened by some magicians and wanted someone to protect her; she could've called Alan, the Goblin Market, whatever, but nooo, she immediately called Nick into her bedroom, and he choked her and BRANDED her, letting all other bad boys and girls know that he basically owns her now (but she asked for it and it was all for her own protection, so it's okay).

I could go on, even give examples straight from the text (there's plenty), but meh. Let's just say all the aggressive, dangerous, abusive things Nick inflicts on Mae are explained away as symptoms that he's struggling with and ultimately can't control because of what he is (which I won't say, in case you haven't read TDL yet). As for Mae, she makes these comments several times like she's strong and won't take any crap from Nick, but that's a big fat lie, because all she does the entire book is make excuses for him (the biggest one: he loves his brother sooo much ' so he can't be that bad!), because let's face it ' he's the hottest guy she knows and she's blinded by how extremely sexually attracted she is to him. She even leads two other guys on because Nick's not giving in to her, but in the end it's all made to seem okay because they both have huge secrets that they lie to Mae about and have their own ulterior motives for wanting to be with her.

So anyway, I still think Sarah is a talented writer; she knows how to make characters multi-faceted and nuanced (I love Alan, Jamie, Sin, and Annabel), she's great at creating familial love, and her sense of humor makes me laugh out loud. I'm not crazy about the world building in this series, but as I'm a fan of character-driven novels first and foremost, that's not a big deal to me. I just hope in the next book that Nick is given a chance at being more well-rounded and less of a walking stereotype, and that he gives Mae actual reasons to pine for him other than he's super hot. I didn't dislike TDC; I just had expectations for Mae and Nick going into it that weren't met, and I feel like Sarah has the ability to be a standout author in YA, but at this point TDC is in the same pile with the majority of the supernatural YA that is pumped out every year. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the third book and I'm still looking forward to reading it.