Cover Image: Interview with The Devil: Part 1: Victor's Accoun

Interview with The Devil: Part 1: Victor's Accoun

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Member Reviews

A full force gore fest of a novel with some pretty sick and twisted plot lines that will undoubtedly shock some and fascinate others if that's the right word to use?
Not for the faint hearted so be warned!

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This book is not for the faint of heart. Grisly scenes that may bot be for everyone. Keeps your interest and makes you realize that there is evil all around us. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book. Although I received the book in this manner, it did not affect my opinion of this book nor my review.

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Our past can haunt us and for some it is difficult to determine what is actually reality. That is the challenge in Parts 1 & 2 of Skylerr Darren's books. It's truly a psychologically twisted journey. Be prepared to experience a read you have never encountered before and have your mind challenged.

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Interview with the Devil Part One: Victor’s Account
1* Book Review
Skylerr Darren

Synopsis courtesy of Goodreads:
"There sat a frail, abnormally-pallid African-American man. His weight looked rather questionable. He looked as if he hadn't eaten in months, judging by the fact that his integral skeleton had been visible through his diminished skin. He stared at me with no facial expression. He just sat there, staring."

Satan, the brooding, scriptural ghoul that takes on the responsibility for murder, perversion, and the gruesome deaths of children. Society views these horrors as a grim nightmare-a nightmare in which one would desperately attempt to wake up from. But in reality, you simply just can't wake up from a nightmare, for both reality and fiction have become one. Victor, a timid young college student dreadfully awakens into such a demonic ordeal from the repulsive dismiss of his relatives, to macabre dreams and morbid occurrences. Do not look at Interview with The Devil: Part 1 as a mere book but instead the detour into your own self-morality.

There are honestly no words, this is awful. It’s full of rape, suicide, dead babies sexually abusing their dead fathers (I know, right)... and for what? It’s pointless. I am by no means easily disturbed, or a prude, or any of that, but there was honestly no need for this. The descriptive text was too much, very over the top, graphic for nothing other than shock value. There was no plot development within all this gratuitous trash that I could make out. Yet it started so well on the first few pages, I really thought it was going somewhere good.
I really don’t have anything else to say about this, it’s bad... it’s really bad.

1* (and that’s generous)
Lesley-Ann (Housewife of Horror)

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The premise of this book is very interesting. A psychology student goes to interview a convicted serial killer that has been locked up in a mental institution for many years, and has had no visitors, and has virtually been kept in solitary confinement. However, the writer's convoluted writing style and extremely graphic descriptions of gore and very graphic violence over and over again with very little plot movement or story line between the horrific descriptions made it a very challenging read. There are extremely graphic descriptions of violent rape, gang rape, murder, dismemberment, and torture, among other things that will likely be difficult to read for many readers. I have read books with vivid descriptions of this kind of violence before; however this book was so extreme, page after page of horrific description, over and over....there were different crimes, different family members, different neighbors, but it felt very repetitive and gratuitous to me. I was expecting it to be creepy or scary--but honestly, it was just gross. I kept reading, hoping to find something I could find redeeming about this book, but unfortunately, I cannot recommend it, unless you have a very strong stomach and don't really need strong story and character development to go with your violence. Perhaps future volumes in the series will include a stronger story, but I will not be continuing on.

I received a digital ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

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This book is brutal. Its sharp and descriptive and gruesome. Definitely not for the faint hearted. Its an interesting story but a bit too descriptive at times. No imagination is needed when reading this because everything is laid out in great detail.

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I tried so hard to read & like this book. I quit reading numerous times. Gave it a day or two and tried again, only to finally quit at 39%. I am an avid reader, have been since I was old enough to read. I’ve read all genres. Romance, comedy, contemporary, thrillers, psychological thrillers, true crime, every damn thing,

I just couldn’t do it with this one. Horrifically disgusting descriptive scenes of suicide etc,. Over use of “big” words that I’ve never read before. Not sure if the big words were to make the audience feel stupid for having to look them up, or if they were to make up for the unrealistic death scenes.

Sorry Mr. Darren but I just couldn’t read this gibberish nor could I recommend it to others.

Disclaimer: I was given a free advance copy from NetGalley in return for my honest review

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Interview With The Devil is a graphic, horrifying book. It drags you into the pages and refuses to let you tear your eyes away. Not for the faint of heart. Highly recommended.

I received a copy of this book on request and I chose to review it. You'll see why!

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Sadly, by page 31 of blood and gore and more blood and more gore, the book loses credibility. I'll read blood and gore but there are rules of credibility even in fiction, fantasy and horror.

I was willing to overlook the credibility factor in the first 30 pages (artistic licence and all that) but he blew it on the next page and discredited everything I had read.

Nobody representing a state institution will relate in absolute horrific detail to a daughter (or other relative) how the patient had ripped her own guts out and then painted a wall with them. Not while informing them of the death over the phone.

On the very next page, a few years later, the daughter in the previous phone call is stabbed to death by an intruder who leaves her husband lying next to her alive but facially disfigured. That's the part where Skylerr loses his tenuous touch with reality. So daddy lies there bleeding from the face and does not do a thing? He doesn't even scream? No police come and the 15 year old protagonist of the book discovers his mother like this in the morning? And his still unconscious father?

That's where I stopped reading. There is no plot, just page after page of slicing and dicing. No shooting, strangling or other ways of murder and suicide (except for his name sake's wife who blows her head off - rare for a woman). It doesn't even read like the journal of a schizophrenic, just a stab and rape fantasy played out on every character so far. Although that would be a subjective opinion as Darren does show both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenic writing. No word salads but everything turns into a demon or Satan and he does write about aural fixations.

Okay, I'll admit, I gave it a few pages more. There was one time he writes with enough emotion that the reader could be convinced the protagonist could have seen something this disturbing and it has a profound emotional impact on the formation of the character. If only Skylerr had explored this more... Instead we are left with another stab fest, only this time Victor is in the room when his mother is killed. He listens to her screaming.

So in his dreams his mother screams? There goes the credibility again. Why did she not scream when she was killed for real? Its enough to have a conniption.

Except for his mother, all other women are evil, as in the Madonna/whore theory.

Apart from the devil he sees in the asylum all men are good and decent.

There is no character development except the nightmares of the protagonist. The plot only serves to move the reader from one blood fest to another.

The picture painted by his father's suicide is unbelievable, children don't die if they see a severed arm. Still clutching a photo of his son, no less. The protagonist shows no emotion at either death of his parents and these scenes are written in a detached way, as if the character was reading a newspaper report. Indeed, I have read newspaper reports of murders and suicides with far more emotion. One cannot connect with the protagonist on an emotional level because the protagonist is so far detached from his own story.

The reader is left with nothing to work with, no emotion means no empathy, blood and gore without emotional content (and its the emotions of murderers, not only their actions, that makes us despise them) is just a graphic picture. If there's no emotional attachment to the graphic nature of the picture being portrayed, the reader forgets the picture the moment the scene changes and it doesn't change much.

I once read Misery by Stephen King, the most graphic thing that happened in that book was the psycho bitch biting the head off a rat. I read that book 10 years ago (finally found time to read it), I have never forgotten that scene. Why? Fifty pages of emotionally terrifying build-up. When she comes into the room, you're about ready to piss your pants. And therein lies the difference between the two books. Here, I'm being pissed on and told it's raining.

Sorry for scorching you Skylerr, I hope by pointing out deficiencies that you do better the second time round.

My thanks to Netgalley for the copy.

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Interview With the Devil part 1: by Skylerr Darren was received direct from the publisher. I had never heard of this novel nor the author before electronically cracking open this book. Once I did, I was immediately drawn to the writing style and lack of political correctness that has ruined most modern fiction. With dialogue such as “What a grody sight to perceive,” I just kept reading, skipping nothing. If you, or someone you buy gifts for, enjoys novels that contain sex and over the top violence and would maybe like to interview a demon, give this book a read.

5+ Stars

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