Conversations With the Devil [Paperback]

Jeff Rovin (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, New York (2007)
• ASIN: B002EG1RKK
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost, May 8, 2007

By 

Anthrophile (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conversations with the Devil (Hardcover)

"Conversations" was interesting. Started out very interesting, finished up totally deus ex machina and rushed. It was new, reading one of these from the POV of an author who is not trying to convert me via fear and terror, but who's just trying to tell a good story -- with a side of deep thought.

However, it goes from fascinating philosophical exchange to a more mainstream, typical "bad guy menaces heroine by moving stuff around with telekenisis and visions" scenario in the last few pages, and "ultimate triumph" doesn't really make much sense according to the rules and theology laid out in the first half of the novel (actually, the story doesn't really seem consistent with its own theology -- Heaven is for boring, easily duped into guilt and "repenting," sheeplike people; Hell is a place of eternal pleasures for the smart, non-duped, edgy people, and people who actually do bad things go to Limbo/Purgatory to get sorted out, until they fully understand just why they are so naughty -- but Hell is still used as a threat, by the Hell-advocate? Well, I do believe Lucifer has just undermined the whole game, right there).

Of course, we could wash it all away with "well he was lying anyway." I dunno, I was expecting more of a challenge. How much more powerful would this have been if the Devil were telling the truth -- but still deserved only to be resisted and defeated? (Or if the lies had made some consistent sense?)

The characterization was quite good (for everyone except the strangely unaffecting main, female character -- I could not get into her. She was even and reserved toward other characters, which is fine, but she was pretty emotionally inaccessible to the reader as well, which is not so fine). And the mental shenanigans were edge-of-seat interesting for about 3/4 of the book, but the resolution disappointed me. Wasn't feeling the menace. I expected to be surprised, and I got that, I suppose, but I was also expecting to be blown completely away (really, the build-up is that good), and I just wasn't.

"I, Lucifer" (similar subject matter) was more fun, more troubling, and more satisfying, if a bit flip and less conclusive.

I'd rather have bought the paperback. Still, a very decent read, and I'm glad I do own it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For your pleasure, November 12, 2009

By 

Alexandra Santos - See all my reviews

This review is from: Conversations with the Devil (Hardcover)

This is an interesting book that makes you think, makes you wonder about where you stand with your own existance. It is not meant to pull you in one direction or the other, to decide for you or shove theology down your throat. Granted I felt Sara was difficult to "get into"; difficult to understand. The words were there but the feelings seem difficult to reach. I didn't quite feel the fear, the pain, the horror. Just the questions, the "truth" of the devil, the imagination and confusion. Perhaps you do not stand with God, or religion, but that does not mean you stand with Satan. It may be worth your curiousity.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent character study of the battle for a soul, March 13, 2007

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Conversations with the Devil (Hardcover)

In somewhat isolated Delwood, Connecticut, two hours on back roads to any major city, the Delwood Academy, affectionately known as "Delac", is considered a pipeline to Yale. Though she never attended the school, psychologist Sarah Lynch works with some of the students who go there as many suffer from isolation with where they live as they have virtual choices re the Internet.

Still when Sarah learns that one of her Delacian patients, Fredric Marash committed suicide she is despondent and wonders how she failed him. Rationalizing that she will not make the same mistake twice, she looks at what turned Fredric into a Satanist and if that worship of the Devil led to his taking his life. Sarah lost her faith in God years ago after the Lord failed to heed her desperate prayers during a tragedy. However, the cynical rationalist is unprepared for Mr. Devil to visit her at her office. The glib visitor spins a different take on the bible and the war between him and God but conceals that the latest battleground is Sarah's soul as he seductively offers her the choice of happiness while he claims his adversary demands kneeling in total adulation.

Once the Devil makes his initial appearance that occurs just after the opening set up of place, time and catalyst, readers will not be able to put down this fascinating "dialogue". Sarah is terrific as she has doubts about God in spite of her best friend who is a nun. Her friend tries to counter what Sarah sees within herself, her family and with her patients. When the slick Devil arrives he smoothly provides her choices that look so much nicer and freer than what God commands of the faithful. Who will win the latest war between Heaven and Hell not fought as End of Days universe-wide Armageddon, but instead one soul at a time?

Harriet Klausner