The Devolution of Journal Writing

If you’re like me, you’ve been doing a bit of reading during this pandemic. Not that I needed a global virus to force me to read (I read pretty much every night, thank you very much) but I won’t say it hasn’t affected what I want to read. Escapism is in right now, very in. With that in mind, I turned to the latest from author Max Brooks (World War Z) to see what supernatural awesomeness he had for me this time.

Devolution follows a group of people trapped in what I think was very rural Seattle. Our protagonist, Kate Holland, recently moved to a designed community called Greenloop to try and repair the damage to her relationship with her estranged husband. The initial problem: A volcano erupts, cutting Greenloop off from the world and forcing them into survival mode. The additional problem: The volcanic eruption is causing all sorts of animals to move through the area, including the mythical Sasquatch.

So was it good? Yes but I want to actually focus on the one area where it fails. I found Devolution to be very entertaining and engaging, but I also found its least believable aspect to not be the humanoid cryptids, but the journal that our main character keeps.

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How Voice Separates Children of Blood and Bone from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Picture a world where certain people are gifted with mastery of the elements. It is a land that lived in relative harmony until an ambitious king seized power by launching an unexpected attack. Our protagonist is a young adult, one of the last of her kind – a people being driven to extinction in these turbulent times. She teams up with her brother and a third friend to try and restore balance – but she must do so before the solstice. Also, she is being hunted by the son of said evil king, but said prince is emotionally conflicted.

Sound familiar? Let me give you a hint:

Except not quite. A similar idea breathes new life in Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood of Bone.

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