2.5 Stars ( )

"Do you really think it's so crazy to draw parallels between the power of the nuclear bomb and the power of black magic?" [he added] "Do you really believe that a weapon capable of destroying cities and killing millions of people in a few seconds is so removed from the devil's work?"

From lines like 'blood is the most powerful energy' to the general use of poorly written cult and witch lore, this book really gets you interested and then drops your hopes in the bin. We have our protagonist sent to live with Mrs. Deverill(guess what she's like just by her name) and it's all downhill from there.

So where should I start? I think with the beginning. The book starts really well, we have a protagonist who is likable, a bit mixed up with the wrong people, but it's obvious he's a bit of an odd kid. His friend and him make bad decisions and from there things are handled decently. Then he gets his sentence and it begins to erode.

There is always something to be said about a book you can skip or skim pages of and lose nothing of worth in doing so. Action scenes feel loose and silly, a lot of moments feel weird.

We have Noah, he's a special guy, as in he's slow and works with farm animals, gee, that's not offensive or a problem to read at all, and it's poked at enough to make me realize halfway the guy is actually mentally handicapped and it's being used as a punchline.

We got Richard, he denies it all, magic's around him and stuff's happening and he denies it completely. Yep, what a good character, and yet he's the only likable one next to Matt, the protagonist. How optimistic. Though, honestly, I'd love to read the whole thing through his POV or even read more about him. I doubt I will get to do so.

Matt, our prophecy child who has powers - or maybe he doesn't, that come and go like the wind. He can see the future, or maybe not. Has sixth senses, and sometimes says things that point to contradict what was written in past chapters. Or becomes a mess of run on sentences and telling/showing that becomes boring by the time the action comes.

And we have everyone else, who exist to die, be killed, or be the bad guy somehow. Such faces that all act and talk the same you forget their names - and so does Matt! They are so forgettable, even out protagonist forgets their name and spends a few lines trying to recall them.

Now onto what I'm sure people are wondering about. Witches, cults, dark magic, satan talk. Did the book portray any of this in new or original ways?
The answer is no.
It's all evil for the sake of being evil. There's not a single good person among the cult, they're all eager child-murderers and happy to slug people in the face and murder animals. Noah(see above) even talks about how much fun killing animals slowly is, and how he's 'allowed' to. Such lovely imagery, right? It's really not, it holds less horror and more a sense of boredom. Never have I read things like child murder written so boring. And the witches, man, I've seen stereotypes less offensive than this book's done. Witches are evil, speak in tongues, have a black cat who's evil too, and all they want to do is summon Satan. They form cults, they kill kids, they force labor. Even the food they make is gross and witch-like, thick red gravy and chunks of meat cooked in a pot like cauldron food. They are the stereotyped satanists with no actual satanism behind their actions of behavior, so little research went into them, that it's obvious they took the old fashioned outdated stuff and ran with it, thinking it wouldn't read bad.

But oh boy, does it.

This is book one of what I've surmised to be an over three book series and it's got me not willing to pick up the next one. Google says there's five books(of course there is, this is about five kids) and I think I read there's bonus ones and a second saga or something? I'm hoping not.

The only reason this is a two star rating and not a one star is the start was good, a nice start, and the book was not that long, amassing barely over two-hundred-and-fifty pages. Were it any longer, I'd have dropped it there and been done with it without finishing. The ending itself is a set up to the next book. If I ever pick it up, let's hope it's not as bad as this one was. ( )

I think this was supposed to be scary… It wasn’t. Like, at all. It probably would have been sort of interesting when I was younger, but definitely not scary.
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Full review to come! ( )