Book Review: The Devil Stood Up by Christine Dougherty

What defines a great story? Is it one that entertains you or is it one that lingers on your mind long after you've read it? The Devil Stood Up by Christine Dougherty happens to be one of the rare ones that successfully accomplishes both of these. While certainly classifiable as a horror story, this book is something much more. It touches on the human condition; those with greed, corruption and self-importance running through their veins, and it brings up a few very interesting questions -- What if the devil is not the epitome of evil as organized religion would have everyone believe but rather a crestfallen angel who is simply doing a job that God has decreed for him to do? What if the devil is simply the non-judgmental punisher of souls who loves God as much as any other angel?

In The Devil Stood Up, the devil wallows away in hell performing his job, all the while feeling the Litany, or wavelength of acts performed by humans. Then, one day he feels within the Litany an act so heinous that he is compelled to render his own form of justice on those responsible. Thus, he enters the body of a young man as his soul was leaving it and begins his journey for justice. Along the way, he has to battle lesser demons, patron saints and something even more powerful than them both - love.

The Devil Stood Up is brutally honest and Christine Dougherty pulls no punches. Perfectly balanced, the violent scenes are very violent and the sensitive scenes are anything but sappy. Her characters are fully alive with dialogue that is spot-on and in Carrie Walsh, Christine has created one of the scariest characters I've read in quite a while. The Devil Stood Up shows us that we don't really need to devil inside of us to do the bad things we do, we're pretty much capable of doing terrible deeds all on our own. This is a refreshing take on good vs. evil.

I highly recommend The Devil Stood Up. This is an extremely well-written book that never fails to keep you wanting to read more. I absolutely loved it. The Devil Stood Up gets ***** out of *****.

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