Review: The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

Tess Matheson works as a librarian on her boarding school campus, juggling her two jobs with her cello playing, schoolwork and caring for her sister. A new regular at the library doesn’t make life easier for her when he swoops in, requesting hundreds of old grimoires on the occult. Eliot Birch doesn’t want to be in this school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, because he would much rather be in London caring for his sick mother. But if his father – who is the principle of the school – will insist on having him there, he will work his hardest to find some miracle spell that will heal her – or resurrect her, if all else fails. After a bargain between Tess and Eliot leads to a discovery of the tunnels hidden beneath the library, the two find a book and accidentally unleash a demon who will stop at nothing for freedom.

Before we begin: how fitting that the inaugural book review on my new blog would be of a book about two characters who find the devil within the pages of a book. This was not planned, I promise.

If you enjoy mildly unsettling, atmospheric books with a rather run-of-the-mill YA romance, you’ll like this.

To sell me a book, you need only utter two terms: ‘dark academia’ and ‘horror.’ The Devil Makes Three does a decent job on the second front. From the get-go, it is atmospheric due to its setting and prose. You can’t get more atmospheric than an empty library in an empty elite boarding school stacked with forbidden grimoires. As for the writing, it is very pretty, but not overbearingly so. Bovalino writes with fluidity, balancing lyrical language with short, punchy sentences. The result is a novel that is surprisingly easy to breeze through, where even in the surreal, fantastical moments, you don’t find the need to reread parts to grasp what’s happening. The substance of these moments is quite unsettling, with vivid descriptions of body horror, of ink flowing from mouths and walls and books, of nightmares where the reader tries to grapple with reality just like the characters do. And quite frankly, while I didn’t find this particularly scary, there were one or two moments that were so deeply unsettling that I found myself walking a little quicker through the dark hallway on the way to my bedroom.

I call the romance ‘run-of-the-mill’ for two reasons. First, it involves feisty, impoverished Tess who hates everything about the wealthy and the privileged, who ends up falling for Eliot – the surprisingly kind and thoughtful boy who, despite being rich, is not at all like she’d imagined he’d be. Second, within two interactions and the exchanging of five sentences, Eliot cannot help but be tickled by her ferocity and Tess cannot help but think about his bashful smile. The romance is a big component of this book. But when romance is this integral to your story, it needs to be believable. That was the main issue: it wasn’t believable to me that these two characters would fall for each other so completely within a couple of weeks. And it’s a shame because had the book taken place over a longer period of days, the romance would have been quite sweet. I enjoy the whole opposites-attract spiel. I enjoy when characters have their world-views challenged by falling in love with the antithesis of everything they thought they believed in. But that requires slow unraveling, not a headfirst dive.

Even so, while the romance didn’t quite work, the family dynamics and characterization were impeccable.

And that’s where the book truly shines. Both characters’ complicated relationships with their families are deeply rooted in their personalities and motivations, and it makes complete sense why they behave the way they do. From an early age, Tess had to become her sister’s caretaker because of her father’s poor financial decisions. This has caused her to be high-strung, overprotective of her sister, with a jaded view of the world and her own future. Eliot has a tense, abusive father and so he tries to do everything in his power to hold onto the one parent who loved him. Both characters’ fear of failure, their fear of not amounting to anything was woven throughout the book, informing their choices. Even when I thought, “Hey, I wouldn’t make this decision,” I also thought, “but I understand why they would.”

But particularly fascinating is how the Devil makes use of these fears and aspirations, especially with Tess. The questions Bovalino evokes are fascinating: do you know what your weakness is? Do you know what your desires are? How far would you be willing to go, what would you be willing to do, if it meant you could have everything you’ve ever wanted? It’s times like these, when authors use fantasy to burrow into their readers’ psyches, making them think about what’s being said that I’m reminded of the power of storytelling.

But… it’s not dark academia.

Yes, a book is a book and how it’s marketed is not the book’s fault, but the ‘dark academia’ aspect of it is what pushed me to read it almost as soon as I received my copy. Perhaps for many people, this won’t even be a big deal because a) there’s a school and b) it’s dark, hence, dark academia.

And perhaps it sounds like gatekeeping… but a creepy book set on school grounds does not make a book ‘dark academia.’ I think the genre is far more nuanced and complex than people give it credit for. It’s not an aesthetic, nor is it a setting. Dark academia is not dark academia unless it explores the corruption and the evil that elitist academia can breed in people. An exploration of how it keeps out those who are historically marginalized, whether it’s people of color, women, LGBTQIA+ folks, or those from lower-income backgrounds. The ‘darkness’ must be intertwined inextricably with academia. Here, that’s not the case. It’s a library on school grounds containing a book that unleashes the Devil. And while the author touches on elitist institutions, it’s more for character development than it is a driving force in the book. So, if you’re going into this book expecting a creepy book set on school grounds, you’re in the right place. If you’re going into this book expecting The Secret History, you’re not going to find it. Adjust accordingly.

Ultimately, this was a fun, semi-spooky book. It was easy to read and had interesting things to say about grief and desire. It explored family complexities in a great way with characters you truly begin to understand. But the romance was average… and it’s not dark academia (thank you for coming to my Ted Talk).

Add it on Goodreads || Purchase on Amazon

Content Warnings

Self-harm (not voluntarily inflicted); some graphic depictions of blood and violence; child abuse by a parent; domestic violence; sick parent.

★ ★ ★

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