Reviewed by Larissa

TITLE:  Ethan & Jag Destroy the World

AUTHOR:  Maz Maddox

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  196 pages

RELEASE DATE:  October 26, 2021

BLURB:

Jagmarith, Demon champion of the Blood Wars, detests festivities.

He’s certainly not a fan of humans or their ridiculous holidays.

Winter festivals. Celebrations of flowers. Misshapen hearts to symbolize love. All pointless and weak.

Unfortunately, his feelings are not taken into consideration when he’s summoned by ancient magic to the human realm.

Stolen from his home in Hell, Jagmarith is now at the mercy of a bumbling, adorable human named Ethan, who has accidentally bound Jagmarith to him. Now, Jag must endure grueling human holidays like Christmas and pretend to be a nice human boyfriend to the man who summoned him.

The fake boyfriend role has been very trying.

But along with the upcoming Halloween party and fuss over finding the perfect ghoulish decorations, not to mention the very odd feelings he’s developing for Ethan, there’s that little matter of the impending Armageddon to deal with.

Jag is not pleased.

***

This book includes short story Demon All the Way and continues Ethan & Jag’s adventure.

REVIEW: 

When you read a Maz Maddox title, certain things remain consistently true:  You’ll get a thoroughly absorbing adventure centered on a romance between two complex endearing characters.  It will be creative, wacky, and laugh-out-loud funny.  Most importantly, it will sit in pride of place on your e-reader or bookshelf as a highly enjoyable read that you’ll want to (and will) revisit often.

Ethan and Jag Destroy the World is yet another example of a Max Maddox book that makes good on that promise.  (Prior gems that also fit include her RELIC series.)  This book is crazy good fun wrapped around an adorable romance between Jag and Ethan.  One of the things Ms. Maddox does best is in describing human behavior in the everyday world through the eyes of an alien/nonhuman species.  Here, our loveable Jagmarith, second son of Bolor’gath, Champion of the Blood Wars, is a demon. He’s a very bored warrior demon, that is until he gets pulled into the human realm through a spell that Ethan (of Clan Mongomery😂) inadvertently cast from a dangerous spell book.  Ethan is a nerdy “scholar” aka a linguist, assistant professor working on his PhD. 

This book is actually two stories in one.  The first part of the book is Ms. Maddox’s previously published short story, Demon all the Way, which takes place around Christmas time. The second, and larger part of the book is the story Ethan & Jag Destroy the World which picks up nine months after Demon All the Way ends.  If you’ve read Demon All the Way already, you can pick up with the second story.  However, I’d recommend reading it all the way through regardless because Ms. Maddox did an excellent job bridging the two stories and it reads like one full-length novel.  The experience is enhanced if you read it altogether.

Because of the time span of the story arc, we get Jag’s internal monologues with his observations of humans and the human world, and particular his view of the various holidays across the year. (Note the story is set in the United States). His commentary is beyond hysterical.  In Demon All the Way alone, he thinks Hollister is a clan, baking cookies is a battle to be won, and snow is deadly.  And he’s afraid of dolls.  His assessment of Christmas is one of my favorites of his observations:

“Just like the speakers in the kitchen, the car also played the same jingles and odd songs about possessed snow creatures, grandmothers being trampled by rogue deer, and running for one’s life in a sleigh through the snow.  If Jag wasn’t aware this holiday had roots in human religion, he would swear it was a demon-based celebration.  Those all seemed like ideas his kin would come up with.”

He’s got plenty of equally amusing thoughts on Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, and Halloween too.  For example, Jag on Independence Day:

“There were no champions in the sense he was used to, no creative ways to display the mangled bodies of the fallen, and the battle cry was a poem. They didn’t even go back to the king and skin him alive.  What kind of victory didn’t have flaying?”

Don’t waste your time trying to suss out flaws in the plot.  There are some.  But it’s really irrelevant because Ethan & Jag is not about an airtight plot.  It’s about the interactions between Ethan and Jag and their adorable fumbling and bumbling to learn about each other and these unexpected feelings between them.

This book can be easily consumed in one sitting.  In fact, I challenge you to stop reading in the middle, or if you have to stop, not feel the tug to return ASAP.  It’s a feel-good, funny, adorably sweet story that will brighten your day.  I highly recommend you jump into the Maz Maddox magical zaniness and enjoy.

👿👿👿👿👿

RATING: 

BUY LINK: 

Amazon