Lord Loss (The Demonata, book 1)

By Darren Shan

Blurb: 
Grubbs Grady has stiff red hair and is a little big for his age, which means he can get into R-rated movies. He hates history and loves bacon, rats, and playing tricks on his squeamish older sister. When he opts out of a family weekend trip, he never guesses that he is about to take a terrifying journey into darkness. Hungry demons and howling werewolves haunt his waking nightmares... and threaten his life.

Review: 
After loving The Darren Shan Saga by Darren Shan, I decided to explore his other series, next on my list was The Demonata. This series is 10 books long but it’s a bit different to the usual series. Each book is one of three perspectives: Grubbs, Kernal and Bec. They are all separate timelines and stories that somewhat come together. It certainly sounds interesting. 

The first book in the series is Lord Loss, with the perspective being Grubbs Grady. The first thing I noticed with this book compared to The Darren Shan Saga was that the chapters were longer. I do prefer shorter chapters, however still not as long as some other books I read. 

I am aware the books are for a younger audience and you can tell. This made it sometimes a struggle to enjoy as it was quite childish, especially at the beginning. Also the character names. However, as the book went on it did get more interesting and more mature. I know plenty of older people who have read the series and loved it. So it’s probably just a matter of getting use to the language style. 

Now I admit despite the names being quite childish, Ma Spleen is a great name. Made me giggle every time I read it. 

Everyone seems to really really love Bec, so that’s the book I’m looking forward to the most I must say. Darren Shan books from what I’ve seen usually get better as the series goes on. Maybe with some poorer middle books but the endings are always worth it. So I’m not too concerned that I was too in love with this one. I will see the series through to the end.

*SPOILERS*

The book starts out with Grubbs pulling a prank on his sister with a dead animal. Which I can understand the reaction. It's quite brutal. But all of the sudden everyone starts being really nice to him which makes him quite suspicious. One night they send him to his aunties but he sneaks back home and discovers his home infested by demons and his parents and sister are dead. I think Darren Shan does a good job to describe this scene as it is quite horrifying and disgusting. His horror elements are always older than the book’s target audience. Which is why older people like me end up reading them.

Usually, in books you don’t really see a breakdown. The characters just sort of move on and deal with the task at hand. But what was really interesting about this book was Grubbs did breakdown. He had a mental breakdown after seeing a bunch of demons kill his family and rightly so. Grubbs ends up in a mental hospital for a while to deal with it. I really enjoyed this part and I think it’s really good to expose kids to mental health and how it’s okay to not cope with everything instantly.

Eventually, Grubbs gets let out to go live with his Uncle Dervish. An odd man that lives in a mansion alone. Grubbs starts to get suspicious with Dervish of being a werewolf because his suspected cousin Bill-E Spleen puts that thought in his head. Grubbs investigates Dervish and in the madness discovers it’s actually Bill-E who is the werewolf. I was expecting a twist, maybe Grubbs being the werewolf but no it was unexpectedly Bill-E. I love a good twist.

At that point all of the mystery and unanswered questions just start coming together. We find out his sister had the same curse and his parents took on a head demon named Lord Loss in a game of chess in the hope to get him to remove the curse. However, they failed which is why they were killed. I didn’t think Dervish was Bill-E’s father and was correct but I didn’t expect Grubbs father to have had an affair and ended up being Bill-E’s father. That was mad, did not expect that at all. 

Then Grubbs had to help Dervish fight demons and play chess to relieve Bill-E of his curse. They succeeded. But Lord Loss set a target on Grubbs. Good ending. However, the very end of the book is what I loved. Everything was back to normal but Grubbs still could turn into a werewolf. Dervish was still in the demon world fighting the demons, so his body was in a weird coma like state. Grubbs was basically living by himself checking each morning for blood in his fingernails to make sure he isn’t a werewolf. Then one morning, he wakes up and sees the blood. You’d think the book was going to end there but no another twist. Dervish is out of his coma state holding red paint. He just did the prank of a lifetime. I liked that light-hearted funny panicky twist. 

Overall, I did enjoy the book but I struggled with the lower target audience of the book causing the writing style to not be a favourite of mine. For this I’ll give it 3.5 stars. I do suspect the other books getting higher ratings though.

Rating: 3.5 runes out of 5

written by Lauren