The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino Review

The devil seeks his due from two unsuspecting students in this YA horror novel for fans of The Library of the Unwritten and VE Schwab.
 

When Tess and Eliot stumble upon an ancient book hidden in a secret tunnel beneath their school library, they accidentally release a devil from his book-bound prison, and he’ll stop at nothing to stay free. He’ll manipulate all the ink in the library books to do his bidding, he’ll murder in the stacks, and he’ll bleed into every inch of Tess’s life until his freedom is permanent. Forced to work together, Tess and Eliot have to find a way to re-trap the devil before he kills everyone they know and love, including, increasingly, each other. And compared to what the devil has in store for them, school stress suddenly doesn’t seem so bad after all.

What if it was just you and me, in an eerie library, with a demon haunting our hopes and dreams, not two but three? More successful than my poor excuse for poetry, the Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino is a YA fantasy book that mixes and matches a variety of inspirations from across various genres. Part dark academia fantasy, part psychological suspense thriller, part paranormal horror, this book blends together its different elements to tell a story about two private academy lone wolves who accidentally unleash a demonic presence while navigating the challenges of their family life.

Set at a prestigious private academy, the overall story revolves around the unexpected release of a demon-like entity from the depths of an academy library that Tess and Eliot work and study at respectively. When taken at face value, the Devil Makes Three sounds like it’s going to be about occultic research and evading said devil. While the book certainly follows this expected storyline to a certain extent, the rest of the book revolves around Tess and Eliot’s personal struggles, conflicted home environment, and familial difficulties that had led to their attendance at the school. For Tess, her story is about her family’s sudden fall from financial grace and her attempts to provide as much as she can for her younger sister Nat at the cost of her once promising future as a talented cello player. For Eliot, his struggles are about his strained relationship with his professor father at the school and the declining health of his mother abroad. Well-fleshed out and written, Bovalino’s character work is one of the best elements of the book, particularly the way she captures the internal logic and worries of teenagers. While the fantasy and paranormal elements are a strong hook, it’s the characters’ backgrounds and unexpected bond that has the most development and focus, plus a bit of romance.

You may be wondering why I’m opening this review talking about Tess and Eliot’s personal struggles rather than about the namesake devil and dark academia narrative. Truth be told, while this book technically is classified as a YA fantasy book, I personally found the fantasy elements to be a bit lackluster and underused. Originally published in 2021, this book was likely written not long after the peak of dark academia’s popularity, and the book has very strong conceptual ideas that try to capitalize on that. Unfortunately, I personally felt like the book’s dark academia element was mostly in aesthetic and setting rather than in narrative content. While the story takes place in an eerie library, Tess and Eliot do limited academic work, more of the book describing life at the academy and personal conflicts. Elements of magic, witchcraft, occultic influences, and paranormal spooks are there but they consistently feel undeveloped compared to how much attention is given to the characters’ familial pains. The magic in particular doesn’t really have much purpose, no system, and is very generically pagan(?) to the point where I would’ve preferred if the story threw everything fantasy under the occultic paranormal umbrella instead. While that’s not necessarily a negative mark against the book, it does feel like the synopsis misrepresents what the book covers and focuses on.

Perhaps more important was that I wasn’t quite sure what the book was trying to be. Initially the story starts as a dark academia narrative revolving around tomes and books about magic. However, once the devil is released, the story takes on a pseudo psychological suspense thriller feel, with Tess being haunted by visions and encounters with the devil and largely dropping the fantasy concepts previously introduced. As Tess and Eliot are forced to work together to figure out what’s happening, their relationship sort of invokes the tone of a paranormal romance story set against the enemies-to-lovers trope. While each element and inspiration on their own is compelling, I consistently felt like the story didn’t go far enough with any particular idea, skimming the surface of them all and only committing to its characters and their family drama. Additionally, while not necessarily slow paced, I often found myself drifting away from the story and the book often lacking a certain spark to keep my attention. For example, in a 390 page book, the devil isn’t released until nearly 100 pages in with almost no fantasy/paranormal elements occurring up to that point. While the devil haunts Tess and starts to cause mayhem at the Jessop library, there isn’t much development with the devil storyline until the last 60 pages or so where the ending gets a bit murky. It’s also a little disappointing that some of the more interesting areas like the devil’s identity, the mystery involving a past fire at the library, and Aunt Matilde’s connection to the school are very rushed compared to Tess and Eliot’s backstories. Likewise, the suspenseful thriller with horror elements are quite good, the recurring motif of dripping ink being a great connection to the academia motif and cursed book concept. The plot was good, I just wanted a lot more of it!

When I picked up this book to read, I was unaware that Tori Bovalino and V.L. Bovalino are the same person, Tori and V. being shortened forms of Victoria, go figure. Having previously read the Second Death of Locke, it’s interesting comparing her most recently published book with her first book. While obviously adjusted expectations for YA readership vs the adult the Hand and the Heart series, they both share a lot of similar elements, namely their slower pace featuring great character growth and generally polished writing style. While my personal interest in the story varied over time, Bovalino’s strong writing chops kept me going. Interestingly, I found the Devil Makes Three at times to be uncharacteristically inconsistent with its tone that felt less confident and sure of what style it was going for. Occasionally the narration would drop random f-bombs and language outside of any character’s dialogue, then go for long stretches of much more standard and mature phrasing. Apart from their disastrous meeting and awkward run-ins at the beginning of the story, it also felt like the book kept trying to force the enemies-to-lovers trope into the story when it really didn’t need to exist in the first place. This is particularly notable towards the end of the book when it’s clear that Tess has feelings for Eliot and the dramatic parting at what is supposed to be the climax of the story. Moments along the lines of “oh yeah I hate you btw” disrupted the flow where there could’ve been much more meaningful and impactful content for their romance that just kind of cheapens the whole reading experience. It’s not horrible and is very on-trend given the trope’s popularity, but for me it never felt like it really clicked and was more disruptive than anything.

The Devil Makes Three is a bit of an awkward book to review as on paper, it’s quite good. Featuring all the right elements, great character development, an appropriate prose, even very good atmosphere and tension at times; by all accounts this should be a very strong YA fantasy book. Unfortunately, the underused fantasy/paranormal elements and the non-committal direction of the story results in a reading experience that is a lot drier and less compelling than it could be. Outside of Tess and Eliot’s family conflicts and backstories, the rest of the narrative content is serviceable, far from offensive but just fine. I suspect that readers that are younger around high-school age will likely enjoy this book a lot more given its relatable characters, but for older readers or those looking for more substantial dark academia content, this might not have enough plot to satisfy. I personally found it to be a decent enough read but not one I’ll likely return to or think about.