"Human history is a repetition of patterns. Empires rise and then fall into decadence and decay. Time and again. Ages ago, human beings progressed technologically at an exponential rate. We expanded into space, we left Earth and traveled the galaxy." 
 The Diabolic was truly insane. 
 It follows the story of the Diabolics, devoid-of-emotion killers who will do anything to hurt anyone who comes in arm's length of the person they're engineered to protect. In particular, it's about Sidonia, the Galactic Senator's daughter, and her own Diabolic, Nemesis. 
 Nemesis, one day, gets word that she must pretend to playact as Sidonia by going into the court of the Empire, where the Senator's enemy (the Emperor) rules the Chrysanthemum. However, within lays Tyrus, the Emperor's madman of a son--the only person, apart from Sidonia, that may weave together how human Nemesis feels. Will she ever feel human? 
 In general, this was a top-notch quality YA science-fiction book. To start off, it's set in space. I can't tell you how amazed I was by the descriptions of space in this book; the gas giants, the nebulae... it was all so fascinating. 
 One thing I extremely adored about this book was Nemesis. She shows no feeling whatsoever except for Sidonia and it shows. She will brutally kill anyone who comes to harm her; the prologue was one of the most amazing representations of this concept. It showed the flawlessness of Nemesis's Diabolical madness. Gods, it was so amazing! I loved the badassery. In normal books, the reviewers might say "Watch out! It's the new Katniss!" 
 Aha, no. Nemesis is brutal. Full on snap-your-neck, tear-out-your-heart-from-your-bloody-chest brutal. 
 It wasn't exactly fast paced, but when it was, what a journey you were being sent on. I obviously loved the atmosphere of the setting, as well as the plot, but one thing I didn't particularly enjoy was the romance. It seemed heavily based on it for the last half of the book, despite the continuous flow of action and adventure. 
 I also wanted a more fluid explanation of how the Diabolics came to be, their origins and history, apart from just being thrust into this world like we're expected to know everything. And, when we're not, we get jam-packed with buttloads of (needless to say) unintentionally placed descriptions. It wasn't the best place to put descriptions, but the author seemed like they knew what they were doing. 
 I have not read Insignia, but I plan to. Just to get an idea of the author's debut novel before thinking whether or not I will give her next book a go when she publishes it. 
 Overall, 4 stars from me. A nice fun, breezy, quick sci-fi read. Be warned, it's pretty dang gory.