Hellhole by Gina Damico (review)

Max is nervous about stealing a toy to cheer up his dying mom, but he never imagined the consequence of his bad deed. After finding a hole that turns out to be a gateway, he is now saddled with a demon from hell who calls himself Burg and subsists entirely on a steady supply of junk food. Of course, as happens when devils appear at your door, a deal is offered, and before he knows it, overconfident Max has further bargained himself onto quite the slippery slope of trouble, all to save his beloved mom. He’s got help in the form of Lore, a girl who has tangled with (and lost to) demons before, but for much of the story, Max is a guy trying (and mostly failing) all on his own to fix his world. A dying mom isn’t usually the stuff of great humor, but this novel is unapologetically funny. The snarky Burg (impeccably developed as a narcissistic ass with a tiny sliver’s worth of heart of gold), Max’s tendency to catch things one step too late but with wry humor, and the absurd piling on of events all work to make a quite amusing, if very dark, novel. Fans of Damico’s Croak trilogy (Croak, BCCB 3/12, etc.) will be right at home with the author’s emphasis on grim topics made sardonic, and horror buffs in general will find plenty of scary undertones to this multilayered plot.