I was a bit apprehensive to read this for some unknown reason. Maybe it was the hype that surrounded it? I have no idea. Also, whilst I was reading it, I kept thinking that it was Scythe by Neal Shusterman (?) I genuinely have no clue what was going on inside of my head. I know that S.J Kincaid wrote a very popular series before The Diabolic, but this is the first book that I had ever read by her, and I was curious to see what all of the hype was about.

Nemesis is a Diabolic. Created to protect a galactic Senator’s daughter, Sidonia. There’s no one Nemesis wouldn’t kill to keep her safe. But when the power-mad Emperor summons Sidonia to the galactic court as a hostage, there is only one way for Nemesis to protect Sidonia.

She must become her.

Now one of the galaxy’s most dangerous weapons is masquerading in a world of corruption and Nemesis has to hide her true abilities or risk everything. As the Empire begins to fracture and rebellion looms closer, Nemesis learns that there is something stronger than her deadly force: the one thing she’s been told she doesn’t have – humanity. And, amidst all the danger, action and intrigue, her humanity might be the only thing that can save her, Sidonia and the entire Empire…

So yeah, we basically have a story about a killing machine and politics. That is pretty much what The Diabolic is about. There were parts of it (such as the way the upper-class families lived) that reminded me of the extravagance of The Hunger Games, with the druggy oils, and excessive ways of life. At first, I found myself slowly reading this. I didn’t want to read it all of the time which meant (to me) that I wasn’t really enjoying it. It didn’t even have a slow start, we were thrown right into how Nemesis became part of the Impyrean family and how dangerous she can be.

Starting off with the characters, you can’t help but love Nemesis. Sure, she’s a genetically engineered killer who was made to look after Donia no matter what. She was made with no feelings apart from those towards Donia as a protector. I love how Donia kept trying to make Nemesis see that she was no less of a person because she was genetically engineered and I loved seeing their relationship grow. There’s was definitely some homosexuality underlying the relationship between these two characters, but it’s a shame that it was never built upon as I think that would have really been the icing on the cake. I also love how Nemesis wills herself not to feel anything but when she’s pretending to be Donia, she can’t help it and she starts to feel things and I just kept getting so excited and emotional for her because she was experiencing new things and she kept getting so confused by it all.

“Perhaps scorpions were the only ones who could save each other.
Whatever lay ahead, it would always be the two of us above the rest of the universe, and woe to any who dared step in out path.”

― S.J. Kincaid, The Diabolic

There are a lot of characters in this book but in no way was it difficult to keep up with who was who. Kincaid’s writing style made it so easy to learn quickly on how to differentiate between the characters and she never info-dumped on the reader. She gradually built up the world and then slowly introduced us to more characters, making sure we knew the previous characters before she introduced us to new ones. AND THERE’S A REALLY CUTE (EX-KILLER) DOG AND I LOVE HIM SO MUCH AND HIS NAME IS DEADLY AND OMG…!

This book was brilliantly written, had a superb plot right up until the last 10%. It became slightly messy and everything was happening at once and then then there was supposed to be a bit where you didn’t know the plot twist, but IT WAS BASICALLY OBVIOUS WHAT THE PLOT TWIST WAS and yeah… it just wasn’t as good as the rest of the book. The very ending was good, it wrapped up quite nicely and readied the reader for the second book well. However, the rest of the plot twists in the book were brilliant. I loved the mind games that the characters play with one another and how backstabbing everyone was. It was just brutal and full of conspiraces.

Do I ship Nemesis and Tyrus? I’m not sure… They are cute together and they are both have major trust issues so it will be interesting to see where Kincaid takes the relationship in The Empress.