I have started to venture away from Young Adult a little bit. I'm just finding it a lot of the same. Generally a love triangle, some kind of dystopia, teenage angst... It's just getting a bit boring to me in my mid 30's now. How many versions of the Hunger Games can one get through? So I was surprised when I found that I really enjoyed this one. When it started I was thinking "here we go again" but was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of angst still, but I enjoyed the premise, the writing was great, and not exactly a love triangle.

Nemesis is a diabolic, a genetic human bred to protect one person who they have "imprinted" on them. Like ducks I suppose. Her charge, Sidonia is in danger and Nemesis has to pose as her to protect her from an evil Emperor, his evil family and unbalanced nephew, air to the throne. But things do not exactly go smoothly.

How GORGEOUS is the cover!! I wanted to read it just based on the beautiful cover, it was a huge bonus that it was a great read!

My favourite character would have to be the insane nephew Tyrus. Loved the twists and turns with his character. Nemesis annoyed me a bit, but overall I liked reading her story.

The whole story was full of twists and turns and I was surprised on more than one occasion, and it takes a lot to surprise me.

Would I recommend The Diabolic?

Yes for any YA fan. Or if someone is on the boarder of enjoying YA this may be the one that tips them over!

Big thanks to the author and publisher via Netgalley for a copy of The Diabolic to review.

The main reason why I wanted to read The Diabolic is because, somewhere, it mentioned a similarity to Star Wars. I love me some Star Wars, and I thought: a YA book that blends any of the themes/adventures in Star Wars would be pretty great.

And then I kind of forgot about The Diabolic because of reasons (I don’t know why, okay), but then I decided to pick it up one day. And you know what? I really liked it.

I liked the fact that we had a badass female character at the helm who was willing to do everything and anything for another female character. Strong friendship/family bond between two female characters? Hell to the yes. So many times these kinds of relationships are completely lacking in books about the “strong female heroine” so I was just PRAISE THE LORD when this book was about Nemesis protecting Sedonia.

My only qualm was that there was no romance between Sedonia and Nemesis. Yeah, sure, it might have taken away from some of the friendship aspect but you can still be friends and in love. And when it was revealed that Sedonia was actually in love with Nemesis, many a tear was shed because this would have been a freaking GROUNDBREAKING novel if that love hadn’t been unrequited. GROUND. BREAKING.

But aside from that one disappointment, the rest of The Diabolic was extremely enjoyable for me. There was a heavy dose of political intrigue, and I have now accustomed myself to the fact that I love political plots. I love reading about usurping evil government officials. I love all the planning and scheming and backstabbing that goes into it. It just warms my cold heart, what can I say.

Even though the romance didn’t happen between the two characters that I wanted it to happen between (see: Nemesis and Sedonia) I ended up quite liking the ship, anyway, and wanted Nemesis and Tyrus to end up together. Because they’re both messed up and don’t trust people and hate being vulnerable. And when they are those things together they’re so much stronger for it. I SHIPPED IT.

There were some quite unexpected twists and turns, and the overall plot of The Diabolic moved quickly. I was never bored for a second, and I have to say that this was one of my favourite aspects of the book. Whenever I put the book down I wanted to pick it up again so I could see what was going to happen next.

Now, when I read The Diabolic I thought it was a standalone, which I loved. Sci-fi standalones are all but unheard of in YA, and it was great to see the story come to such a satisfying conclusion. But alas, it has since been announced that there are going to be sequels, thus making The Diabolic the first in a series. I am really unsure of whether I’m going to continue because the short blurb of the second book all but ruined the delightful and perfect ending of this book. So in all honesty, I probably won’t continue with the series, even though I thoroughly enjoyed The Diabolic.

If you’re looking for a fresh take on YA sci-fi that can totally be read as a standalone (live in denial with me!), then I’d suggest giving The Diabolic a try.

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