Suffer The Children by Craig DiLouie
Mar. 28th, 2016 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
So many mouths to feed.
It begins on an ordinary day: children around the world are dying. All children, everywhere – a global crisis beyond any parent’s worse nightmare. Then, a miracle beyond imagining: three days later, they return. Shattered mothers and fathers see their sons and daughters happy and whole once more, playing and laughing as before – but only when they feed. They hunger for blood … and they can’t get enough upon which to feast. Without it, they die again. How far would you go to keep someone you love alive?
Joan Cooper is a stay-at-home mum with two young kids – Megan and Nate – who runs a child care business from her house in the small suburb of Lansdowne, Michigan to supplement the income brought in by her husband Doug, a garbage man.
Ramona Fox is a single working mum who pays Joan to look after her son, Josh. Life isn’t easy for Ramona – Josh has celiac disease, which leaves him with extreme food intolerances, and there aren’t many men out there willing to date a woman with a sick kid.
David Harris is a paediatrician who’s trying to rebuild his practice with the help of his wife, Nadine (a nurse) after the death of their infant son in an accident.
When the Herod Event strikes, every pre-pubescent child in the world dies, leaving the Earth’s population traumatised. Then, 3 days later, a miracle happens: the children return to life. But there’s a dreadful secret behind the childrens’ return – they need to drink human blood. A pint of it gives them several hours of normality. Without it, they return to death.
Soon a dreadful market in blood develops and as the children need more and more to stay alive, each family discovers how far they’re prepared to go for their children …
Craig DiLouie’s horror novel is a bone-chilling take on the old tropes of vampirism and the end of the world that taps into every parent’s worst nightmare. Although the three families are painted with a broad brush, DiLouie does well at giving each small details that emphasise their humanity and how much they’re willing to sacrifice the same. I particularly liked how each character’s response to the crisis differs and how they dovetail in with each other and go to different extremes, especially when compared with the pre-Herod family dynamics. There are some genuinely terrifying scenes, most notably the Officer Smiley scenes, which stuck with me for a long time. It’s not a perfect book – I would have liked some more scenes showing the reaction of teenagers to the crisis (all of the characters are parents) and I found the ending rushed, with the introduction of the children’s point of view coming a little too late and being a little too jarring. That said there was more than enough here to keep me turning the pages and if you’re into horror, then I think that this is a must-read.
The Verdict:
Craig DiLouie’s horror novel is a bone-chilling take on the old tropes of vampirism and the end of the world that taps into every parent’s worst nightmare. Although the three families are painted with a broad brush, DiLouie does well at giving each small details that emphasise their humanity and how much they’re willing to sacrifice the same. I particularly liked how each character’s response to the crisis differs and how they dovetail in with each other and go to different extremes, especially when compared with the pre-Herod family dynamics. There are some genuinely terrifying scenes, most notably the Officer Smiley scenes, which stuck with me for a long time. It’s not a perfect book – I would have liked some more scenes showing the reaction of teenagers to the crisis (all of the characters are parents) and I found the ending rushed, with the introduction of the children’s point of view coming a little too late and being a little too jarring. That said there was more than enough here to keep me turning the pages and if you’re into horror, then I think that this is a must-read.
It begins on an ordinary day: children around the world are dying. All children, everywhere – a global crisis beyond any parent’s worse nightmare. Then, a miracle beyond imagining: three days later, they return. Shattered mothers and fathers see their sons and daughters happy and whole once more, playing and laughing as before – but only when they feed. They hunger for blood … and they can’t get enough upon which to feast. Without it, they die again. How far would you go to keep someone you love alive?
Joan Cooper is a stay-at-home mum with two young kids – Megan and Nate – who runs a child care business from her house in the small suburb of Lansdowne, Michigan to supplement the income brought in by her husband Doug, a garbage man.
Ramona Fox is a single working mum who pays Joan to look after her son, Josh. Life isn’t easy for Ramona – Josh has celiac disease, which leaves him with extreme food intolerances, and there aren’t many men out there willing to date a woman with a sick kid.
David Harris is a paediatrician who’s trying to rebuild his practice with the help of his wife, Nadine (a nurse) after the death of their infant son in an accident.
When the Herod Event strikes, every pre-pubescent child in the world dies, leaving the Earth’s population traumatised. Then, 3 days later, a miracle happens: the children return to life. But there’s a dreadful secret behind the childrens’ return – they need to drink human blood. A pint of it gives them several hours of normality. Without it, they return to death.
Soon a dreadful market in blood develops and as the children need more and more to stay alive, each family discovers how far they’re prepared to go for their children …
Craig DiLouie’s horror novel is a bone-chilling take on the old tropes of vampirism and the end of the world that taps into every parent’s worst nightmare. Although the three families are painted with a broad brush, DiLouie does well at giving each small details that emphasise their humanity and how much they’re willing to sacrifice the same. I particularly liked how each character’s response to the crisis differs and how they dovetail in with each other and go to different extremes, especially when compared with the pre-Herod family dynamics. There are some genuinely terrifying scenes, most notably the Officer Smiley scenes, which stuck with me for a long time. It’s not a perfect book – I would have liked some more scenes showing the reaction of teenagers to the crisis (all of the characters are parents) and I found the ending rushed, with the introduction of the children’s point of view coming a little too late and being a little too jarring. That said there was more than enough here to keep me turning the pages and if you’re into horror, then I think that this is a must-read.
The Verdict:
Craig DiLouie’s horror novel is a bone-chilling take on the old tropes of vampirism and the end of the world that taps into every parent’s worst nightmare. Although the three families are painted with a broad brush, DiLouie does well at giving each small details that emphasise their humanity and how much they’re willing to sacrifice the same. I particularly liked how each character’s response to the crisis differs and how they dovetail in with each other and go to different extremes, especially when compared with the pre-Herod family dynamics. There are some genuinely terrifying scenes, most notably the Officer Smiley scenes, which stuck with me for a long time. It’s not a perfect book – I would have liked some more scenes showing the reaction of teenagers to the crisis (all of the characters are parents) and I found the ending rushed, with the introduction of the children’s point of view coming a little too late and being a little too jarring. That said there was more than enough here to keep me turning the pages and if you’re into horror, then I think that this is a must-read.
