The Diabolic (The Diabolic #1) — S.J. Kincaid

“You already knew your purpose in this existence. And now you don’t. 

Now you have to grapple with the same questions the rest of us face. 

Where do I go from here? What am I to do next? 

It’s terrifying to realize your own decisions are shaping your destiny.”

 

Synopsis:

A Diabolic is ruthless. A Diabolic is powerful. A Diabolic has a single task: Kill in order to protect the person you’ve been created for. For Nemesis, that person is Sidonia, heir to the Galactic Senate. But when the power-mad Emperor summons Sidonia to the Imperial 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 amidst politicians and two-faced Senators’ children, and Nemesis must find within herself the one thing she’s been told she doesn’t have – humanity. With the Empire beginning to fracture and rebellion looming, that could be the one thing that saves her and the Empire itself.

Opinion:

I really loved this book. I will admit that it contains some clichés, however, are the ones that I like. This, and that the protagonist is not a good cute girl. I appreciate when people stop pretending to be good and start to be real.

This book makes me remember the world of The Foundation of Isaac Asimov, but with a more juvenile story. Nemesis is not afraid to be cruel, as she was designed for that. In this book no one is afraid to be cruel, they know that sometimes the end justifies the means.

Nemesis is not supposed to be a human since she was created, she was told that. They did something to her to make her love someone unconditionally, Sidonia. She never thinks for her safety or for her happiness, always is Sidonia. And finally, she has the opportunity to discover she is able to live, like the rest of us. With the good and the bad things that life includes.

“It’s terrifying to realize your own decisions are shaping your destiny.”

I would also say that this book could work alone. The sequel is unnecessary, the end was enough for me, and sometimes the sequels ruin a perfect story. Unfortunately, I had already bought the second book so I will read it anyway.

Quotes:

“I had no tear ducts and was totally incapable of weeping, but I’d seen tears often enough to know they were about pain and fear. But it seemed they could come from joy as well.”

“The illusions were gone, our truths bared, and yet I felt like I saw and she saw me, and perhaps in some ways we were equals for the first time.”

“Compassion is something very strange to me. But I’m not blind to its value.”

“She told me people sometimes saw a light before they died, one that seemed to offer all the answers to all the mysteries of the cosmos. I hope she saw it.”

“We let machines think for us, act for us. Our ancestors sought knowledge, but we, their descendants, glorify ignorance.”

“You already knew your purpose in this existence. And now you don’t. Now you have to grapple with the same questions the rest of us face – where do I go from here? What am I to do next? It’s terrifying to realize your own decisions are shaping your destiny.”

“They decided to fabricate me that much less human than them, and yet they didn’t take away my capacity to feel pain, just my ability to express it.”

“I would have the truest revenge of all: I would make my life mean something.”

“The frog asks the scorpion why it stung him. And the scorpion replies ‘It’s my nature’.”

“I gazed again at the dead stars forming a virtual gash in space, pure light with edges of lurid purple. Now, it seemed, I could see something terrible in it. I knew I was looking upon oblivion itself.” – Description of a Black Hole.

“Beauty, I thought again. Wild and uncontrolled, like the lightning. I didn’t know whether I admired or mistrusted it.”

“There was no genetic cause for what I felt, what I was experiencing. It could be my humanity. Pure, inborn humanity. Donia had been right. I’d had it in me all along.”

“Having a heart that burned with emotion meant having a flame that could be doused in an instant by forces you could not fight, perils you could not see. To care was to be helpless in the worst possible way.”

“– I live for you.

– Maybe I just want you to live for yourself.”

“There was a light people saw when they died. Some believed it to be a chemical and some believed it to be the Living Cosmos calling them to the afterlife. Diabolics can see it too, so it must simply be that chemical after all…”

“You speak to me as though I’m a person, and then you turn around and assume I’m utterly devoid of feeling!”

“I’ve always believed love is the most volatile substance in the universe. It erupts, it incinerates, and then it simply flames out… Love betrays you, and if you’re wise, you will never forget that.”

“We were both scorpions in our way, dangerous creatures crossing the most treacherous of rivers together. Together we might sting – but we also would float.”

Score (5/5)