This book was boring! It seems the writer ran out of plots. It was the same thing over & over. Michelle being laughed at, the mother being the only one that senses something wrong is happening, the father tuning everything out and pretending nothing is happening, children dying one by on.
"When the Wind Blows" was way better than this book, it kept me glued.

In ‘Comes the Blind Fury’, Paradise Point is ironically where a tragedy occurred a century ago. A lonely blind girl named Amanda fell off the cliffs in Paradise Point after being taunted by some kids. However, she’s never really gone away and the Pendleton family finds their lives being torn apart when their daughter Michelle begins changing in mysterious ways.

To be honest, the writing in this book wasn’t the author’s best. Repetition was present throughout the story especially when it revolved around what happened to other children. Therefore, it was mostly predictable and I would have appreciated a little creativity on the author’s part. Besides that, reading about the Pendletons at home was boring as there’s a common pattern – Michelle keeps trying to get her father’s attention but he always ends up ignoring her or saying the wrong thing. Then her mother steps in and tries to rectify the misunderstanding but Michelle walks away.

Although I found the story to be easy to read and particularly liked the first chapter, this book was never really scary. I also found it truly unbelievable that twelve-year-old Michelle didn’t realize that Amanda was a ghost. Instead, she thought of her as a friend yet she never questioned why Amanda was so different from other people in a myriad ways. If Michelle had been written as a five-year-old, I could accept it as she’s too young to comprehend and perhaps unable to differentiate but kids of her age usually know about ghosts.

The ending was good but it should have been cut short to one particular chilling scene to maximize the impact, hence making it the perfect cliffhanger. Overall, ‘Comes the Blind Fury’ looks way creepier than it is but it’s a decent story if you go into it without any expectations.

Funny how books are so subjective. My wife abhors Stephen King’s books while I adore them… most of them anyway. But she’s a big John Saul fan. I was aware of him but had never read anything by him. So, my wife picked her two favorites from our library and gave them to me to read. This was one of them. Oh my. After reading them, I wonder if perhaps fandom of these writers is mutually exclusive.

I was unable to buy into the story or the characters. Motivations, thoughts, and emotions didn’t seem appropriate to the ages of some of the characters. There was an overall lack of depth to the story and characters. Behaviors and attitudes were at times irrational and swung wildly and seemingly without reason. I know humans can be irrational and inconsistent, even in a story, but there should be a thread to their thinking in a book that you can follow, even if you don’t necessarily agree. Here, it just seemed to bounce about. Perhaps my expectations were too high going into the story, knowing that John’s a huge bestselling author and one of my wife’s favorites. In any case, I was disappointed.

I typically shy away from providing negative reviews to books whose authors are still living, but I’m confident that John’s career has been and is big enough that my little review on a book this old shouldn’t hurt.

"The sound of the ocean filled her ears, and the black-clad child paused for a moment, her face turning seaward, a picture of wheeling gulls forming dimly in the far reaches of her memory. Then, from behind her, she heard another sound—a sound that to any ears but hers would have been lost in the roar of pounding surf.

It was the sound of laughter.

She had heard it all day today, and knew what it meant.

It meant her schoolmates had become bored with their games, and were going to focus their attention on her for a while.

It happened every year during the fall It seemed to her that each summer, when school was out and she seldom ventured beyond the beach and the bluff, the children forgot about her. Then, come September, she would become for a while an oddity to be stared at, wondered about, talked about.

And tormented."

Comes the Blind Fury by John Saul



I recently had a chance for a reread and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I think reading it the second time way better then the first!

I had been a Saul fan since girlhood. Inspired by my lovely Mamacita, to read his books, I loved them. Mom was a Saul super fan and I soon followed. But eventually my tastes changed and his books also changed becoming a bit more gory and violent for me. But I still love some of his his early books and this one, along with Punish the Sinners is my favorite.



SPOILERS:

One thing this book has that many horrors do not is soul. The main character, Michelle, goes through the wringer. Most of Saul's book are about children but this one really gets into Bullying before it was even a known term in the English language. What Michelle goes through is awful but her vulnerability is exactly why Amanda is able to control and use her so skillfully.

This is John Saul so..sigh..do not expect a happy ending.

But I do love this book, no matter how tragic it is. 4.5 stars.

Awful.*

* Just to be clear - I grew up on Stephen King, Clive Barker, etc./other bad late 70s early 80s "horror" authors and they will always have a soft spot in my heart, unless they are the author of this book.

Li esse livro aos 12 anos e senti muito medo. Ao reler agora,14 anos depois, o medo não foi tão forte pois ficamos menos impressionáveis com o tempo. Mas ao lê-lo uma certa noite antes de dormir dei uma espiadinha embaixo da cama, só pra conferir. Não custa nada...

In the charming small town of Paradise Point, a gentle blind girl named Amanda took a walk along the seaside cliffs near her home and vanished forever. Nearly a century later, after many young children reported sightings of Amanda who mysteriously vanished so long ago, the locals of Paradise Point begin to speculate that the events leading to her disappearance may have been more sinister than previously believed.

After the Pendleton family move into their new home in Paradise Point, their daughter Michelle befriends a creepy doll that she instinctively names Amanda. I'm sure you can guess where the story goes from there. It's a tragic tale of a dead child seeking revenge on other children, using an innocent and emotionally vulnerable child as a conduit to unleash her wrath upon the living.

A bit cliche and predictable, but the story plays out well and the ending is surprisingly hard hitting for what it is.

My rating: 3.5/5

Creepy and violent. Well paced. Refreshing, old school fun.

this book is about a family that moved from boston to a different town. when the get there weird things start to happen. people start to get hurt and even die. so the girl that lives there has this doll and it starts to tell the girl that nobody loves her. i would suggest this book to people who like mystries.

Oh my gosh this book is a complete page turner I could not put it down. The story line is terrific and just over all... a great book.

John Saul is one of my favorite authors and when the opportunity came for me to read „Comes the blind fury” I didn.t wait around.

The book was a bit less than I expected, but this doesn.t mean it wasn.t a good book. It had the catch that I was so used to. It was terrifying and brutal. And made me wonder about the human nature.

Comes the blind fury is the story of a girl that comes to the conclusion that she is all alone in the world and finds comfort where she shouldn.t. Strange things start happening and the past comes to life to bring terror on Paradise Point.

I had been a Saul fan since girlhood. My mom was a Saul fan and I soon followed.

One thing this book has that many horrors do not is soul. The main character, Michelle, goes through the wringer. A lot of Saul's books are about children, but this one really gets into bullying before it was even a known term in the English language. What Michelle goes through is awful but her vulnerability is exactly why Amanda is able to control and use her so skillfully.