Rating: 3 of 5
I might recommend Suffer the Children to readers who devour all things vampire…if those readers don’t mind moderately flawed fiction. Its cover and the blurb had me expecting a book filled to the brim with super creepy kids. Unfortunately, that’s not what it delivered.
The beginning was written at a steady, slow burn style pace with superb tension and suspense. As a parent, it wasn’t too difficult to relate to the parents’ grief. But then came the middle: the exhausting (almost boring) pursuit of “medicine” for the kids, the (predictable) spiral into insanity and murder, and the repetitive mindset and choices of all the parents. The end of Part IV, also predictable, was bleak yet strangely satisfying. The epilogue, “Midnight,” was pretty scary.
Suffer the Children‘s premise, while not original, was unique enough in its own world that I had to finish the book, despite the slog through its middle. Also, the cause of the children’s death felt new. Sure there’s been vampires born of viruses, but I don’t think I’ve read anything exactly like Herod before. Lastly, there was social commentary for those who might care to read between the lines. Having witnessed many a parent indulge their screaming, spoiled child in the toy store or at the park, I can’t say the parents in this book surprised me at all.
Check out the author’s website to watch the book’s trailer.
(Review cross-posted on LibraryThing and Goodreads.)