2 out of 4 stars
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Demon Freaks by J.R.R.R. Hardison (Jim Hardison) starts as an innocent story about four teenagers, Bing, Ron, Kaitlyn, and Meat, being what they are supposed to be: the teenagers. However, what starts as a night of not studying and procrastination, ends with them trying to save the world from ultimate evil, the golfers club. Through a lot of lightning, raining and corridors, we follow our four characters as they clash their mostly human powers with an evil talking dagger, the members of different cults, toothy monsters, magic and, what else, their wicked history teacher.
I have to admit that I wasn't sure at times if I am reading young adult adventure fantasy book or something that is not sure if it wants to be a parody or not. For a parody, it had too little of that humor I would expect from it. For a young adult adventure book, too many ridiculous situations. At times the book had some resemblance to Terry Pratchett's books, and sometimes it reminded me of Eoin Colfer's. At other parts it just made me cringe.
The book had no character development. What started as a really good introduction of twins, Ron and Bing, and their personalities, lost its appeal very quickly with no backstory. One of the main characters was a girl. All you knew about her, was that she loved to shower and was apparently very smart. Because the author has stated it at the start of his book. He did try to make it into an ongoing joke, which I would appreciate in a parody, but in this book, it seemed just like plain laziness. I would have much rather saw some personality. On the opposite, there was some humor in writing some of the other characters. Like the dagger with a personality of a spoiled villain.
The plot had some holes in it but was essentially interesting. It had some scenes in the middle of the story that went on for an extreme amount of time, but when those ended it ran smoothly right to the end. It was an easy read, however, without any depth.
The editing was terrible. The book had random letters and symbols inserted throughout the pages and the font size changed as it pleased.
I think that Demon Freaks is a book with a lot of potential and I am sorry to see how much of it was wasted. I rate it 2 out of 4 stars. It was a pleasant read to relax to while resting my brains. I would recommend it to a younger audience, 10-year-olds to 15-year-olds. However, beware, because it does have some explicit bloody fighting scenes.
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Demon Freaks
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