3 out of 4 stars
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Demon Heart by David Crane is a book based in the modern culture of Japan with the added intrigue of myths, legends and historical flashbacks. I was entranced by the storyline and the depth of explanation of both the Japanese culture and the demon background. Every chapter started with a Japanese proverb which drew you into the culture of the novel. Every page gripped me and I was unable to put it down from start to finish.
The novel starts with Naoko (the main character) laying mortally injured on a beach and looking back at her life so far. The story the jumps back right to Naoko's childhood, as told by herself as an adult. You watch Naoko grow from a child, learning new abilities and finding out who she is. As Naoko is not a normal person, her journey is even more interesting and leaves the reader wanting to know more and more about how she fits into society. Naoko is a human-demon hybrid, as is her mother. Their bloodline runs from one ancient female demon who mixed with a samurai warrior. Due to this, Naoko is able to display extreme strength, speed, agility and the ability to sense supernatural forces. As tragedy strike Naoko's young life, she faces many immensely difficult situations that push her to her limits as a hybrid and force her to make impossible choices. Her spirit, determination, strength of character, abilities and trust in the goodness of people is so heartfelt and makes you want her to succeed.
I fell in love with both the main character and the supernatural detail in the demon background and mythology. The novel explains in detail why human-demon hybrids exist, their history, abilities and their role in amongst humans. It was delightful to watch a character grow from a child to an adult, especially one as interesting as Naoko. It was brilliant to see such an amazing female antagonist, one that as a reader I really connected with. This, however, made it devastating to watch her have to make heart-breaking decisions and move through the difficult times in her life.
The only negative comment I would make about the novel is that, at times, the actions of the "bad guys" became a little obvious to guess. I loved that there was so many altercations throughout her life, with numerous different people, but the fact that there was so many of her loved ones being kidnapped was a little repetitive.
I would give Demon Heart by David Crane a 3 out of 4 stars. I would definitely recommend this novel to anyone interested in demon folk-lore and those interested in the Japanese culture. However, I would not recommend this novel to young adults as there are adult themes in the book which I would be wary of allowing a teenager to read, specifically murder, gory detail, rape and sexual content. The novel does have grammatical and spelling errors which is the only reason I could not give it 4 stars. It was so well written and gripping that I had to read it twice to notice the errors.
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Demon Heart
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