Official Review: Diablo by Sean Riley

Ursula_Minor · Post by **Ursula_Minor** » 05 Sep 2015, 18:13

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Diablo" by Sean Riley.]

2 out of 4 stars

Share This Review

Diablo, by Sean Riley, crosses genre: it's part romance novel and part realist fiction, with a few characteristics that bring to the verge of erotica. The book follows Diablo, who has just been released from prison in time to turn thirty, and who is trying, desperately, to be a good person. Having served a ten-year sentence, Diablo is coming-of-age late. At thirty, he's fully mature, but came into being as an adult while embedded in the American prison system. His task, now, is to decide which markers of class and success are meaningful to him, and he ends up caught between his desires and the things available to him based on his criminal record.

This book is interesting for its portrayal of the banality, and the difficulty, of life for ex-cons in America. Diablo struggles to find work and finds himself accepted by some but judged by others. His goals are both lofty and simple: he wants to be a great writer; he wants to find love and settle down, and to reconnect with a daughter he's hardly had time to know. Embedded in a story that is at times funny, and at times touching, is a sharp critique of the American prison system.

As a character, Diablo is both strange and believable. Perhaps the biggest strength of this book is that Diablo embodies a combination of attributes that don't always seem to fit together organically, but which suit him, and seem to flow naturally in the world of the book.

Riley might have done better to have put this text through a few more sets of revisions. The tone is appropriate for the genres the text works in: where the content is heavy, the main character works hard to keep a positive perspective on his situation. Spelling and grammar errors, however, sometimes cloud the effectiveness of the writing. Diablo's voice is sometimes inconsistent, and the book contains a few errors, such as misnaming characters, that are disruptive. Additionally, while the main character is well developed, and fairly well rounded, the text includes interjections from peripheral characters that take away from the main narrative, and that make certain character voices sound flat where they might otherwise seem conflicted, thoughtful, or complex.

Diablo's strengths are nearly equal to its weaknesses: it tells a complex and interesting story, but the author lacks the command of language that his main character is said to have, and so the experience of reading is at times rough. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick read, or who has interest in the individual and complicated lives of American ex-cons, and anyone who likes a book that doesn't take itself too seriously. Conversely, readers looking for polished prose, adventurous plot structures, or literary fiction will probably not enjoy this particular read. I give this book 2 out of 4 stars.

******
Diablo
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon

Like Ursula_Minor's review? Post a comment saying so!