We’ve seen Charley Davidson’s story continue through the
books – now we look again at these events, but from Reyes’s point of view.
This is a book that largely recaps a lot of what has been
spoken about and touched upon in the main series. Often I’m not a fan of that
when it comes to short stories – or long stories for that matter. Retreading
old ground too often feels like some kind of broken money-grab, leaching a book
out of a series when it doesn’t really have an original book there. It has to
bring something new to the proceedings, to the series – it has to bring a
perspective that is actually useful and novel
The perspective this book brings is Reyes point of view
The actual events of the book are ones we’ve seen before.
We know Reyes’s history – we know he was repeatedly abused by Earl, we know he
was controlled by threats to his sister. Everything he endured is something we
knew about. But seeing it from Reyes point of view helped explain a bit more
about him, especially since he’s always been the awesomely powerful one Charley
has turned to
Here we see what she brought to him – he isn’t just her
protector (and frequently abusive controller). He relied on her on her light
and on her presence to get him through the dark times.
It also brings some insight into him and his views. He’s
always been ridiculously, impossibly beautiful in a way that is full of
annoying Paranormal Romance tropes of the incredible love interest who just
can’t be resisted. Well here’s the dark side – here’s Reyes, ab to sense
people’s emotions and always feeling that endless, hungry all consuming lust.
It’s a burden on him, a constant attack on him, a pressure that always drives
him down. From there his appearance is never an asset to him, but a source of
constant pain. A source of him hardly ever being able to have real
relationships with most people.
This is also coupled with his knowledge of who he is and
what he does and the inherent conclusion that he is damned, tainted and awful.
Which, of course, he is in a way – he was created entirely to help the invasion
of Earth and Heaven, he was created to co-opt Charley, her mission and her
power.
He chose to reject that, but it took a lot of walking
through fire to get there.
We could always infer Reyes’s story – but there is
definite value to seeing it through his eye sand his experiences, it helps
explain him a lot more
Though it certainly doesn’t justify him, it does help
explain him.
I also have to say I’m somewhat impressed by how the
abuse is depicted. There’s no doubt how he is abused, how horrific it is – but
the depiction is not graphic or brutally detailed. They don’t flinch from it
but nor do they feel the need to dwell on it with excessive, painful triggering
detail. It’s a well balanced way of having a character suffer extreme abuse
without forcing the audience to go along with all the details
Inclusionwise we do have some Latino characters as well
as a Reyes. A brief side gay character (who basically exists to be tragic and
droomed) though there’s also a major point that Reyes, who can see if people
are going to hell, is very clear that no one goes to hell for being gay. The
main people in Reyes’s life – his sister and Charley are women. Ultimately this
is Reyes’s very personal story so any characters – marginalised or otherwise –
beyond him are going to be very small roles.
I still have many of the same issues with this story as
I’ve had with many like it. Much of this could be inferred, much of it was a
retreading what we already know. It adds something but that something is among
a great deal of things we already know.
