I briefly considered adding this story to my Books of Christmas challenge but I’m glad I didn’t. Even though Christmas and Christmas traditions feature prominently in it, The Devil That Broke Us doesn’t exactly scream Christmas spirit. It’s an interesting book, a fitting end to the Devil trilogy but it’s a hard book to read. Or listen to, as is the case. I liked Elizabeth Saydah’s narration of this book a lot more than the previous one.
The book begins in 1914, when the letter warning Jesse of the danger the Ponak were facing arrives, at last, bringing back memories of 1873, when Jesse left her family to try and help the tribe. That’s where we left her at the end of book 2, on her way to the mountains, too late to help anyone, and where we find her again, in a flashback, that will then work its way forward to 1914.
I was hoping, after everything they’ve been through in the first two books, that Jesse and Abby would have a nice and joyful life from now on. Of course, that would have probably made for a more boring story, and I understand completely why the author didn’t choose that. Still, this final book in the trilogy brings the McGinnis family more than its share of grief. Jesse and Abby lived a long and full life, however, with a lot of love and joy too, but the overall feeling I was left with at the end was more bitter than sweet.
Jude in the Stars 