NetGalley Review: Hellraisers (The Devil's Engine #1) by Alexander Gordon Smith

Title: Hellraisers (The Devil's Engine #1)
Author: Alexander Gordon Smith
Published: Dec. 1, 2015
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux
Pages: 352
Genre: Teens, Fantasy
Review: ARC provided by NetGalley and publisher
Buy Link: Amazon 

From the author of the Escape from Furnace series, an explosive new horror trilogy about an ordinary American kid caught up in an invisible war against the very worst enemy imaginable.
There is a machine from the darkest parts of history, concealed in an impossible location, that can make any wish come true, and the only price you have to pay is your soul. Known as the Devil’s Engine, this device powers a brutal war between good and evil that will decide the fate of every living thing on Earth. When a 16-year-old asthmatic kid named Marlow Green unwittingly rescues an ass-kicking secret soldier from a demonic attack in the middle of his Staten Island neighborhood, he finds himself following her into a centuries-old conflict between a group of mysterious protectors and the legions of the Devil himself. Faced with superpowers, monsters, machine guns, and a lot worse, Marlow knows it's going to be a breathless ride—and not just because he’s lost his inhaler along the way.

I received this book via Netgalley to give an honest review.

So I saw this book and I automatically saw the name of author and knew I had to see what his new book was about. I read his previous work Escape From Furnace and really enjoyed the story being told there so I figured this one had to be just as good.

For me I wasn't too much into the story it just didn't work for me as a reader. I really couldn't connect with the main character Marlow just the way he acted drove me just about as nutty as all get out. Though I can remember him being as he likes to drink, get into trouble, and he has asthma. We learn about that a lot through the story being told.  The other characters ehh not to much there is Pan who seems like she would be a great character to read about but she fell flat. She was awesome in action and didn't back down but she didn't seem anything other but a heroine. 

The "demons" that come after those whose contract is up I felt they were like transformers in a way just by the way the author described them. I didn't get the creepy feeling that I got with his previous work and I don't expect the books to be anywhere near the same but this story felt it was all over the place. I think the only true enjoyment I liked was when we got to be introduced to the Engine and learned more about it. For that this book will get a three rating instead of a two. I really enjoyed how the Engine worked it gives but it takes away a bit of your soul as well. Though it took a while to get the information on that.

The author did a wonderful job with the fighting scenes and giving us plenty of action just not a lot character development besides Marlow. Would I read the other books in this series I am not quite sure. I think maybe the teens would like this book and I recommend it to them. It just didn't work for me.

Alexander Gordon Smith is the author of the Escape from Furnace series of young adult novels, includingLockdown and Solitary. Born in 1979 in Norwich, England, he always wanted to be a writer. After experimenting in the service and retail trades for a few years, Smith decided to go to University. He studied English and American Literature at the University of East Anglia, and it was here that he first explored his love of publishing. Along with poet Luke Wright, he founded Egg Box Publishing, a groundbreaking magazine and press that promotes talented new authors. He also started writing literally hundreds of articles, short stories and books ranging from Scooby Doo comic strips to world atlases, Midsomer Murders to X-Files. The endless research for these projects led to countless book ideas germinating in his head. His first book, The Inventors, written with his nine-year-old brother Jamie, was published in the U.K. in 2007. He lives in England.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/alexan...