2 out of 4 stars
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Demon Freaks, written by J. R. R. R. (Jim) Hardison begins at the end of a school day. What started with academia ends up being a battle against the forces of evil. The reader is introduced to a bully of a teacher named Mr. Brom, and three of his students: twin brothers Bing and Ron, and their friend Meat. After being pointed out and embarrassed by their teacher, the three kids decide to go to their friend Meat’s cabin to cram for the SATs the next day, inviting their friend (and fellow band member) Kaitlyn along. The boys expect Kaitlyn to be a little late, since she’s always late; they don’t expect for a thunderstorm to roll in, along with the very same abusive teacher.
Upon reading the premise of the book, I thought it would be a fun, fast read. Kids fighting evil, the power of friendship, the supernatural? That’s the kind of thing I like, so I downloaded the book. Now, having finished it and let myself think over it, I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars.
I’ll start with the good things first. The book wasn’t terrible - I read it without wishing that it would just end already, or without considering just putting it down unfinished. One thing that stood out was how Bing and Ron talked like teenagers and felt like them. Many older writers will either forget how it was to be a teenager, or how teenagers act, and it comes out feeling awkward. Hardison avoids that, and the kids that end up getting screen time are endearing. Bing and Ron are good kids with a realistic relationship, not always getting along but clearly caring about each other. Meatball, their friend, ends up growing past ‘lazy drummer’ and becoming a bit more mature. Kaitlyn, on the other hand, is a character I will talk about in a bit.
The author kept the story contained into one day, which kept the novel from getting too long. The action wasn’t poorly written but there was so much of it that it didn’t leave much room for character development, save for the three boys. Pacing in the novel was fast, which encouraged you to keep reading, and if the reader had a question, it tended to get answered in-novel.
Now, the bland and the bad. Like I said, I didn’t hate the novel, and I think that other people that read it could enjoy it. As for me, I kept noticing that the author seemed allergic to the word ‘said’. Nobody just said something - it was always inquired or snapped or shouted or questioned. What Hardison lacked in ‘said’ he replaced with adjectives. I don’t think I’m a person who thinks that you should never use them, but I found myself counting how many I could find on one page. Not something that made me ruin my enjoyment, but it distracted me.
The bad. We’ll start with Kaitlyn, but to be frank, the book wasn’t great about female characters in general. I wanted to like Kaitlyn, because at first it sounded like she was just a bit of a lazy teenager, which is relatable. Then it’s revealed that the reason why she’s so late all the time is because… she spends forever taking showers. At first glance I didn’t think anything of it, but later I realized it was just another ‘ha ha, women take forever in the bathroom!’ joke trying to be a character trait. As the story progressed, we didn’t get much of a view from Kaitlyn’s eyes. It felt like she was just there to agree with things, and say “I thought it was something like that.” How did she come to the conclusion of what was going on? If Hardison could have taken a page or two to elaborate and give us more about her, I think I would have liked her more. I wanted to like her, but she started one dimensional and ended one dimensional. We learned about what Bing wanted to be when he grew up - Ron’s lack of ambition was a character trait - and Meat even realized he hadn’t been thinking about the future at all. What did Kaitlyn want to do after school? Other than showers, what did she like? The author never told us, and it’s kind of depressing.
Three other female characters were introduced, and the author doesn’t give us much about them at all. They’re typically brought up as being female or chicks - like the reader has forgotten that since we last read about them.
Did I hate the book? Well, no. I didn’t love it, either. I feel like if Hardison had gone through a couple more rewrites, it could have been a lot better. Instead it felt like it was half-baked, and I finished the book without feeling one way or another. From meeting the characters, to learning about them, to seeing them put in danger and getting out of it - I never felt any strong emotion for them; or the book in general. All in all, I didn’t hate it, I didn’t love it. It was the fiction equivalent of a fast food meal.
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Demon Freaks
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