– Customer review on 14/01/2012

Rebecca Dessertine produced the feature Loveless in Los Angeles, which can be seen on Comedy Central. She also co-wrote the comic books Supernatural: Rising Son and is an assistant to series creator Eric Kripke. David Reed co-wrote the comic book Battlestar Galactica: Final Five and has written two Syfy Original Movies, Lake Placid 3 and Temple of Kali.

– Customer review on 11/08/2011

This story is supposed to be set after the S5 episode "My Bloody Valentine"--and presumably before the next episode after that--but it didn't feel like it for a second.

I don't know if the authors had the chance to know what they were dealing with, but like most of the tie-ins the authors seem strangely to ignore the canon events the boys have supposedly just experienced and thus sabotage their characterization. If this story truly followed the canon it is supposed to, Dean and Sam have just been ambushed by Famine, whose influence caused Sam to relapse on demon blood again in a pretty horrifying way for the first time since starting the Apocalypse. His attempts to overcome his demon blood addiction were sabotaged and he's just been through a hellish withdrawal...possibly the first full withdrawal he's seen through. As for Dean, it's become increasingly clear through the first part of the season that Dean is finally reaching the limits of his endurance and is white-knuckling it. He can't trust Sam any longer; their relationship was shaken to its foundations by the events of the end of S4 and by the changes that have taken place in Sam since S3 and Sam's failure to recognize and take responsibility for and address the personal offenses he's committed against Dean. Dean is weighed down with an immense sense of responsibility as Michael's potential vessel and a hunter who knows exactly how bad things can get and is terrified for himself, Sam, and the world at large. Their attempts to date to find a solution to the Lucifer problem have failed catastrophically, most recently resulting in the deaths of Jo and Ellen Harvelle. Sam may have every intention of resisting Lucifer, and Dean still loves Sam deeply, but Dean knows his brother and after what he's seen (in The End and in Sam's behavior), he (as comes out in "Point of No Return") has lost any confidence that Sam can or will resist Lucifer. Bobby is crippled and sunk deep in self-pity. Castiel is hardly dependable, and Dean can never be sure what his agenda is. Ultimately, Dean is on his own to save Sam and the world and stop Satan, and saying yes to Michael may be the only way to save billions of people even if both he and Sam will be sacrificed. And in all justice to the character, Dean would still be dealing with nightmares and flashbacks and other aftermath of Hell. By the end of MBV, Dean is clearly losing it, deeply depressed and despairing, his coping mechanisms overloaded, emotionally shut down, no longer functioning, hardly eating or sleeping and drinking far more than he should.

But there is little hint of any of that in this book, though it would be compelling material and is vital to make the characters remotely consistent with canon at that point in the show. Sam was given short shrift in canon, and though this book tries to make him sympathetic and canon should have done far more with Sam's character through S5, the Sam of this book bears little to no resemblance to the S5 Sam we saw in canon so it's hard to give him any credibility. And then there's Dean, who is portrayed almost as a caricature of himself in S1, chasing skirt and being an overbearing jerk with no hint of the growth he showed in canon since then and the wisdom he seemed to gain through his deal and time in Hell. Getting with anybody was the last thing on Dean's mind after MBV, and he was so subdued that the wisecracking and such in the book just seemed cartoonish in comparison with what the characterization should have been. Then too, I take umbrage at the book's portrayal of Dean as overbearing towards Sam and someone who would deliberately allow himself to get drunk on a hunt. And the issues between the boys are pretty much ignored and play no role in the story, which is a glaring omission especially in several moments of the story where these issues should have set both of the boys off.

Then there are the other inconsistencies. The authors conveniently forget that Sam and Dean know by this point that even if they died or tried to kill themselves, they'd simply be resurrected to play their part. (It was foolish to write this into canon, as that obliterates the credibility of any threat to the boys' lives, but that's still canon.) Salt has never stopped or done significant damage to demons in the show. Demons trapped in a Devils' Trap cannot just fly off free...they either remain trapped and powerless until the trap is broken or they are exorcised or destroyed by Sam's power. And those are just a few examples.

The plot of this story seemed pretty incoherent and I have to admit that after three different time travel episodes this just fell flat. And it didn't help that the authors had no room to maneuver as the status quo had to be maintained in the end. So this book was pretty disappointing.