The Boy Who Killed Demons

Starred review from September 15, 2014
Henry Dudlow is a boy with a terrible affliction. Either the world is about to be invaded by demons, or Henry has completely lost his mind. His efforts to find answers unfold in his diary, which holds the confidences of a young man isolated from his family and peers by an ability he can neither control nor deny. Henry’s conviction that the rising demon threat is real leads him to ever more dangerous behaviors, even as he connects with people who are sympathetic to his plight. Henry is denied the proof he needs to feel completely confident in his actions, and yet must continue to take action due to the terrible consequences his inaction could bring, so he bravely become something bad, in order to prevent something far worse. The sympathy that Zeltserman (Monster) invokes on behalf of Henry is heartbreaking, and readers will fully believe in both the madness and the greatness of his tragic young hero.

October 15, 2014
Humor outweighs the horror in this amusing look at a 15-year-old saving the world. Henry Dudlow is a typical upper-middle-class teenager. His father is a lawyer, his mother's a marketing executive, and they live a very comfortable life in Waban, Massachusetts, where "you don't find too many kids shoveling snow or mowing lawns to earn money." That was BSD, or Before Seeing Demons. Where most people see normal humans, Henry sees "flaming red skin, yellow eyes, horns, grotesque faces with twisted misshapen noses" all around him. He becomes obsessed with learning the demons' wicked ways, teaching himself German and Italian to read medieval texts and conducting experiments to track them at various places around Boston. Enter Sally Freeman, a first crush from grade school who moves to Henry's high school and fans the flames of adolescence to high heat. Henry is now obsessed with both Sally and the demons he's hunting. Children nearing their fourth birthdays go missing, and Henry makes the connection to a gruesome find in a warehouse in Brooklyn where 39 kids were found caged in some unspeakable ritual. The pattern is repeating in Boston. Henry embraces his calling, drops Sally-temporarily-and commits to saving the children and the world from the gates of hell. The story is told in the form of Henry's journal, where he keeps a record in case he doesn't survive. Zeltserman manages the voice of a teenager deftly, and the adolescent angst rings true. The demons are almost background to a tale about growing up. Zeltserman has written an entertaining novel but not one that will keep you from turning off the lights.

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October 15, 2014
Zeltserman's follow-up to the bombastic Monster: A Novel of Frankenstein (2012) is an about-face, a low-key curiosity disturbing mostly for the content between the lines. For two years now, Henry Dudlow, 15, has been seeing demons of flaming red skin, yellow eyes, and horns. To everyone else, they look like ordinary citizens. But can't they see how dogs fear them? Can't they sense the evil? Henry is convinced that demons are to blame for rashes of child abductions, especially after he finally obtains the ancient text, L'Occulto Illuminato (he's been boning up on his Italian in preparation), which should divulge how demons can be killed. Even though Zeltserman tells the story through Henry's journal, Henry remains an impenetrable mix of stoicism and fits of rage. His step-by-step progress toward demon slaughter could be read as standard supernatural-adventure fare if it weren't for the nagging impressionto Zeltserman's credit, he never overplays itthat Henry is schizophrenic, and he's unwittingly preparing to murder innocents. That possibility gives the book a highly upsetting edge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)