Book Talk | The Diabolic

 

Title: The Diabolic
Author: S.J. Kincaid
Page Count: 403 (Hardcover)
Genre: YA, Sci-Fi
Goodreads Rating: 4.8 stars
My Rating: 4 stars
Book Cover Rating: 5 stars
Would recommend to: Sci-Fi lovers and people who are into political plotting and mindgames.
Bad Book Review: Robots do actually have feelings!
Review Type: First part spoiler free, second part spoilers


What's The Diabolic About?
This book takes place in space, where robots called Diabolics are created to bind themselves to one person and kill anyone who are a threat to that person. Nemesis, our main character, is a Diabolic created to protect Sidonia, the Senators daughter. All is well for a while, but when Sidonia is called to court where she will most likely not survive, Nemesis goes in her place.

Spoiler Free Thoughts
First of all I want to say: please don't be mislead my the ''Red Queen meets The Hunger Games'' thing they say about this book. I can see why people may compare this book to those two, but believe me when I say they are nothing alike. The only Hunger Games-ish thing I found in this book is that the Court if kind of like the Capital. And for Red Queen: I did not like Red Queen, which is why I felt a book unsure about this book at first. I was not disappointed. Yes, there are some things that are similar to RQ, but to me this book was much more thought through and just generally better.

At first this book confused me a bit. It takes place in space and I'd never read a book like that before. In the beginning I kind of felt like there was a lack of character descriptions and world building, but when you're patient and just continue the book everything will be explained.
 
I really liked out main character Nemesis. She is struggling with having feelings when she's not supposed to have them, she's not human after all. The only person she dares to admit feelings about is Donia, but only because she is her Diabolic. Slowly you find out that Nemesis actually cares about more people and things than she shows, which made her a very relatable character to me.
Speaking about Sidonia, the daughter of the Senator: She is the person that Nemesis is supposed to protect, but I did not care about her at all. The whole political part of this book was so much more interesting to me, that at some points I actually completely forgot about Donia.

SPOLERS AHEAD

Tyrus Domitrian
When we met the 'madman' Tyrus Domitrian I immediately felt like there was more to him than he showed and that the whole being crazy thing was a massive act. Turns out I was right. This book kind of had a slow start to me, but the moment Tyrus and Nemesis formed an alliance, I felt like this story really took off.
Tyrus was probably the most interesting character in this book to me. For years of his life he pretended to be insane, so that the Emperor would trust him. Once he gets with Nemesis we find out that he is probably the most intelligent person in this book. It was so interesting to see him come up with the most cunning plans to take out his grandmother and uncle to take the throne and rule the...land...county...space? in a proper way.

Romance
We all know I love my romance, but I was glad it was not the most important thing in this book. I like the plan Tyrus came up with of marrying Nemesis to make it seem like she had influenced him to be less insane. Eventually, this fake relationship grew to the two of them having real feelings for each other, but it is never the most important part of the book.

The ending 
The ending of this book was very confusing to me, but in the end I did end up liking it. I was hoping Kincaid wouldn't pull a 'the bad guy is actually good, but NO WAIT he is actually bad', like happened in Red Queen. When that did happen in the end, I was kind of disappointed, but then later on. I had really expected better from Tyrus and I truly believed that he would do anything to be with Nemesis, even if it meant killing Sidonia.
His grandma had a plan of taking out the Emperor and Tyrus had a plan and they revealed it to each other and than his grandma had other plans and so did Tyrus. Yes, I was very confused, but I just kept reading, hoping that at some point I'd understand. I did, kind of. 
In the final chapter of the book we find out that Tyrus did outsmart his grandma and makes his grandma reveal that it was her who planned to have Sidonia killed and not him. Nemesis and Tyrus end up together and we have a happy ending.

~ Amber