A review by angus_mckeogh
Children of the Dark by Jonathan Janz

1.0

What did I just read? Was this supposed to be YA? Because it definitely reads like it, but I think it’s supposed to be adult horror fiction. Was the sage main character a 60-year-old former police officer? No, he was a 15-year-old high school kid. Hmmm…he reads as if he’s 60. The dialogue doesn’t sound like any teenagers I’ve ever encountered and the thought processes of the kid seem like an accumulation of his wizened age. Nope. Most of the adults are morons and are intellectually inferior to the kids. Okay. Then the horror just sort of leaps into the story spontaneously about a quarter of the way through without any sort of reasonable purpose (and we’re talking about a horror novel here) and then only achieves a “gross out” level. Decapitations. Kids getting shot. Mangled wounds. Most of the violence is senseless and not really advancing the story at all (understood…it’s just a horror novel). But not very scary and the characters read as false and unrealistic. Not my favorite. Perhaps there’s better Janz out there?