Better The Devil by Erik J Brown | Rating: 4.5 Stars

A teenage runaway pretending to be a boy that has been missing for 10 years? I'm sold. Better The Devil follows a teen who runs away from home as his parents attempt to send him to a conversion camp. Months later, he is arrested for shoplifting and while at the police station, he notices a missing child poster that he resembles. In a moment of desperation, he decides to tell the police that he is that missing boy. Very quickly, the teen finds himself having to contend with the family he is lying to and what really happened to the missing boy. I really liked this book! The premise is interesting and the follow through does not disappoint. I love an unreliable narrator, and I feel like the teen falls perfectly into that category - we know he's a liar and we never even learn his real name, we only know that he is acting out of desperation. I did guess fairly early what happened to the missing boy and that plus how things got at the end is what kept me from giving this book 5 stars. There is a fair amount of villain monologuing that I honestly could have done without, like we get that the character is legit crazy, we don't need them going on and on about all their plans.