"The Devils You Know"

"The Devils You Know"

Written by M.C. Atwood

Review written by Diana Iozzia

"The Devils You Know" by M.C. Atwood combines elements of "The Breakfast Club", "House of a Thousand Corpses" and "Heathers" to create "A Night at the Museum" turned murderous. However, an amalgamation of many popular and beloved films does not amount to a unique, interesting, and bone-chilling horror novel. This book tries to overachieve and be the newest indie horror, but it completely falls flat due to its numerous flaws. I highly disliked this book, but it is still a well-created book. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It has an interesting premise, an interesting backstory, and satisfying horror elements. But having the bare bones of a horror novel does not make it a fantastic addition to the genre.

We meet Violet, a very normal, awkward, boy-crazy girl who sounded to me that she would be the final girl. Gretchen and Dylan are the punk-rock, emo, tough characters. They are clones of each other, as if the author just didn't want to completely rip off "The Breakfast Club"s characters. Ashley is the slutty, popular, annoying girl who overly speaks of her bisexuality, but never calls herself bisexual. This always is disliked by members of the LGBT community, so I mean, that can annoy you, but you do have an LGBT character representation (if that matters to you, me not so much). At least half of Paul's external and internal dialogue is told in Shakespearean quotations. (WHY?!?! JESUS.) He's pretty damn creepy otherwise (in the "Wow, her boobs looked so great, I nearly got a boner, because I bumped into one" way).

That brings me along to my least favorite point of the book: the dialogue. Because we are *treated* to reading every character's perspective in first person, we are *treated* to their internal and external dialogue. Nearly every character sans Violet and sometimes Gretchen are unbearable. Honestly, the characters sound if they are aliens trying to blend in with humankind, using weird profanity and expressions that no real human would ever say. For example:

1. Douchecanoe is written at least 6 times. Asstroll. Dickmunch. Douchemunch.
2. Her voice sounded like smelling salts.
For these, I just turned to random pages (because I stupidly took out all of my post-it notes before finishing my review.
3. "Hopefully I don't get digested by a monster? I'm totally suing this place when I get out. After I disown my parents."
4. F***-a-doodle doo occurs at least 5 times. Jesus. Who on Earth would actually say this? Alieeens.
5. Ashley Garrett is pure D bitchitude.

Continuing on. My last gripe is the unrealistic set up of the story. A museum of creepy murder-y things collected by some weird hermit in the mountain. The museum comes to life. Cat and mouse game of who will live and escape. But, the students come here on a school field trip. One that exempts senior students from taking final exams if they go on the trip. Can anyone tell me what school would actually send their students to a museum similar to something that Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer would have created? It just sounds like a liability for a lawsuit. This would have been a much more realistic story if it was just kids that went here on the weekends out of morbid curiosity.

I realize that my review makes the book sound like the worst horror fiction ever created. It's not far off, but it had potential. The idea of a group of teenagers going to a creepy serial killer-ish museum that comes to life sounds great! However, if it was written in any other way than it was, I'd probably enjoy it a thousand times over. It's not creepier than other high school fiction. I feel that R.L. Stine's horror fiction is significantly creepier. I haven't read many teenager horror fiction books lately, but there have to be better ones than this. I'm sure someone I know will enjoy this book, if they can get past the terrible dialogue. I could imagine this turning out into a good movie, as long as they hire a screenwriter to write the screenplay. This needs so many changes to be a film I'd like to see. Like I mentioned before, the creepy crawlies definitely frightening enough to spread fear.

*I received this book as a complementary review copy.*