#UltimateBlogTour Review: The Devil’s Apprentice by Kenneth B. Andersen

A fun read with an interesting and unique premise!

Foreword

This is my very first blog tour so I hope this is what I’m supposed to be doing! I was very fortunate to be offered a spot on this tour by The Write Reads on Twitter.

Thank you so much to The Write Reads and Kenneth B. Anderson for allowing me to be part of this experience and also providing me with a complimentary digital copy and blog tour media kit!

About the Author

Kenneth B. Andersen (1976) is an award-winning Danish writer. He has published more than forty books for children and young adults, including both fantasy, horror, and science fiction.

His books have been translated into more than 15 languages and his hit-series about the superhero Antboy has been turned into three movies. A musical adaptation of The Devil’s Apprentice, the first book in The Great Devil War series, opened in the fall 2018 and film rights for the series have been optioned.

Kenneth lives in Copenhagen with his wife, two boys, a dog named Milo, and spiders in the basement.

Website www.kennethbandersen.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/WriterKennethBAndersen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kenneth_b_andersen/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/K_B_Andersen
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/kenneth-b-andersen

Review

Book CWs

Bullying
Abuse
Torture
Ableism (in particular bad portrayal of people who died by suicide)
Paranormal Creatures
Attempted Murder

Premise

Philip is a good boy, a really good boy, who accidentally gets sent to Hell to become the Devil’s heir. The Devil, Lucifer, is dying and desperately in need of a successor, but there’s been a mistake and Philip is the wrong boy. Philip is terrible at being bad, but Lucifer has no other choice than to begin the difficult task of training him in the ways of evil. Philip gets both friends and enemies in this odd, gloomy underworld—but who can he trust, when he discovers an evil-minded plot against the dark throne?

The Devil’s Apprentice is volume 1 in The Great Devil War-series.

Review (No Spoilers)

First of all, I am super grateful to be part of this blog tour because otherwise I probably would have never picked up this book. I couldn’t find it in any libraries and didn’t see it in my local B&N so I worry that it’s not getting the attention that it deserves. Hopefully this tour can fix some of that!

I already mentioned at the top of this post that I love the book’s premise, but the characters were just as interesting. I found myself both invested and attached to what was going to happen with Philip, the MC. He is presented as HUGE cinnamon roll, so who wouldn’t want to know how his life in hell would turn out? I love me some cinnamon.

Aside from Philip, the rest of the character depth was so good that I even became attached to Lucifer and many side characters. In fact I was starting to feel bad for a bunch of people despite the fact that they are supposed to be evil.

Andersen didn’t shy away from introducing biblical characters into the narrative, which I appreciated. In a book about heaven and hell, I feel like it would be extremely weird to not reference the Bible. We have mentions of Jesus, Pontius Pilate, David, Goliath, etc.

Even with all of these great characters, I’d have to say that my favorite part was the detail that went into the writing. I could tell that Andersen had thought a lot about what he was going to say and how these things were going to fit together. There were some pretty entertaining explanations as to why people are the way that they are and why they die when they do. I particularly enjoyed how each person’s punishment in hell was in some form of just deserts.

As with all books, The Devil’s Apprentice wasn’t without its downsides. There were a few typos that I caught and some lines that I thought were inconsistent with what was said previously. Finally, the story was entertaining but I really wish it would have happened over a longer period of time. From what I understand, the entire book takes place over 14 nights and I have a super hard time believing that everything took place in two weeks. I could believe like 3 months but 2 weeks? Come on.

That being said, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in fantasy. I’m not a fantasy woman myself so whether or not I continue this series depends on a lot of stuff, but if any of you are interested (and I hope you are), I’ll drop the amazon link below!