THE BOY WHO COULD SEE DEMONS: A Pleasant Surprise

The Boy Who Could See Demons by Carolyn Jess-Cooke
Reviewed by Katie

This book wasn’t at all what I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised. It tackles the topic of mental illness in children, specifically early onset schizophrenia. But there are moments when the demons seem VERY real, and I kept wondering if this was going to be a fiction book or a science-fiction book. The characters are all well done and I cared about them and rooted for them. The two viewpoints were Alex, the young boy with a possible mental illness, and Anya, his psychiatrist going through her own issues. Both were done well and I liked how they moved the story along – very smooth.

Another interesting facet is that the story takes place in Northern Ireland. The author alluded to there being a higher number of children with mental illness due to growing up in a violent atmosphere. I say “alluded” to only because this was an ARC without a bibliography, so I don’t know if this piece of information is based on experience and don’t want to draw too many conclusions without reading more about it first. But it certainly seems plausible.

Bottom line – I flew through this book and enjoyed it. If it weren’t so horrible, my favorite character would probably be the demon, Ruen. He reminded me of the demon Bartimaeus from the Jonathan Stroud books…only more real and more evil.

_______________________________________________

Copies of The Boy Who Could See Demons are available on our shelves and via bookpeople.com.