Suffer the Children
by John Saul
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Book Summary Information
Author: John SaulEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1986-08-01
ISBN: 044018293X
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Dell
Book Reviews of Suffer the Children
Book Review: A book so horrifying you must read it to experience it...
Summary: 4 Stars
I can't even decide where to start with this book. I just barely finished reading it, and my mind is completely numb, and I don't dare go to bed for fear that an evil child holding a knife in one hand and a headless dead cat or a severed arm in the other will appear at the foot of my bed. I have never in my life read a book like this one, and that is very tough for me to say. When it comes to my preferred genre of books, I usually tend to gear towards splatterpunk horror, or extreme horror books. The more disturbing a book is, the better, and I have been told that I have a stomach of steel.
I had heard about this book from an online forum discussing the scariest, most disturbing novels they have ever read and decided to go pick it up at my local paperback book exchange store. I really didn't expect much after the last novel I read (Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite, best horror novel I've read to date), and almost put the book down after reading the first 50 pages. I'm glad, and regretful at the same time, that I decided to continue on reading.
As far as extreme goes, this book is extreme...in some sort of disturbingly sick and vicious way. From the get-go Saul presents you with a delicate, yet simple prose, and although he didn't describe Port Arbello as well as Stephen King or Poppy Brite would have, you still felt like you were there in that sad little dreary town. The story line is very detailed and well thought out, and it almost beckons you to keep going until the end.
Now for the content. Oh boy. What can I say? It was not what I expected. There isn't that much gore in this book as you think there is, but then again, there is a lot of guts and grue. Saul vaguely describes the gruesome scenes while still making them nightmarish and disturbing. I've always found that holding back on gruesome detail is more effective when it comes to horror. And WOW, was it effective. I'm not easily scared, and consider my "stomach of steel" comment as well. Despite those two things, I often found myself cringing and nearly vomiting while reading this book, and that's saying a lot. This book is so dark and disturbing, it is unbelievable, so unbelievable that you have to read it to really know what I'm talking about. This book made me never want to have kids, EVER. I think the scariest part was that it involved small children, and Saul was very brave to include the subject of psychotic youth as a center for the plot. I believe not many authors do that because it is often times to disturbing for the reader. But Saul grasped the concept, and threw it in your face, making you struggle not to throw the book against the wall.
Lastly, I gave this book 4 stars because of (drum roll) the awful ending. I didn't feel like it was necessarily rushed, I just felt like it was unnecessary, and left a lot of lose ends to still be tied up. But, I guess I'm just used to happy, "Pollyanna" endings, and I guess it was Saul's mission to leave it open, which is in some sense more effective. It still pissed me off though. Overall this book was brutal, dark, disturbing, and insanely interesting. WORD OF WARNING: DEFINITELY not for the faint of heart. Although the gore and grue factor isn't necessarily hyped up, the disturbing aspect is, and this book will stay with you FOREVER. I know it will stay with me. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Now to figure out how to get to sleep tonight.
Summary of Suffer the Children
One hundred years ago in Port Arbello a pretty little girl began to scream. And struggle. And die. No one heard. No one saw. Just one man whose guilty heart burst in pain as he dashed himself to death in the sea. Now something peculiar is happening in Port Arbello. The children are disappearing, one by one. An evil history is repeating itself. And one strange, terrified child has ended her silence with a scream that began a hundred years ago.Horror Books
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