Review by KC23 -- Demon Freaks by J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison

[KC23]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Demon Freaks" by J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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I give this book a solid 4 out of 4 stars, simply because of how gripping and compelling the entire story (and the characters were).

At first it reads like an everyday, teen novel; high school, stupid teachers, the works. At first I was interested to see where it was going as nothing seemed quite demonic/supernatural as the cover suggested (bar the image of “mutant cutesy geeks”), so I was quite interested to see how it built to something similar to what its description and cover suggested. I was thoroughly entertained and surprised. Through a series of unfortunate and hilarious events, the build-up of the plot was excellent. The action with the ‘teethheads’ kept me on the edge of my seat throughout and every passing second (before the ‘McDonald’s’ employees showed up (some scares after they showed up as well)) had me thinking “Yeah, everyone’s about to die a sad death “, which they may or may not have, NO SPOILERS. I was surprised how invested I got into the twins and their adventure, which is what made me enjoy the action filled parts all the more.

I loved how Brom’s character played quite the major part in the novel as he wasn’t just some pointlessly mean, stereotypical teacher, he actually drove some important parts of the story, which is another part of the book that I adored: How pretty much every character is vital to the unravelling of events. This came as quite a surprise to me, just how involved everyone was in the novel and how almost every word spoken in the book built up to such a grand collective ending. It was fun backtracking and recalling the events that took place in the cabin when I neared the end of the novel as I could finally piece together the ‘why’ behind everything that took place.

Each character’s personality shone quite well and worked perfectly with the comedic aspects of the book, from the humorous “Jesus Christ!” shrieks to Kaitlyn’s multiple “I knew that would happen” claims. Throughout most of the novel I feared never seeing the band back together and interacting again, so when Meat had his telepathic moment with the twins it was quite comforting to witness (though at the moment I feared what may happen to them all).

I feel like saying any book (or any piece of work for that matter)is “perfect” is always an overstatement, but Demon Freaks ,to me, may just be. I’m not an avid reader of action/adventure/horror novels (not that I’m NOT a fan of them, they’re just not always my first choice of literature) but man did this book impress. I should point out that ‘coming-of-age’ novels are usually my cup of tea, and this book had some aspects of that which definitely kept my attention a lot at the first quarter of the book. The silly, as well as smart, humour, sense of fear, relatability of the characters (as they were just normal teens thrown into a world of unknown) and a generally really well thought out story all make for a collectively intriguing reading experience.

As far as typos or errors go, I ran into letters popping up where they shouldn’t be, which didn’t necessarily look like typos or anything but rather perhaps coding problems of some sort, not sure. It wasn’t too much of an inconvenience in any case.

I’d easily recommend this book to pretty much any reader, as it had a bit of something for everyone, as I said I’m not necessarily one to quickly pick up a book of this genre, yet I ended up giving it 4 out of 4. It was well worth the read and kept me invested throughout, and I’d like to congratulate the author on creating such a well rounded novel.

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Demon Freaks
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