Suffer the Children reminds me a bit of the early Stephen King books. It starts with a big mystery and through the story things will get clearer, but also get a lot more disturbing. You get a clear vision of what is happening to the characters. It made me keep reading and reading.
Until I got to the end (last 5 or 10 pages). Suddenly the ending didn't feel like the rest of the book. It felt very rushed. The detailed how's and why's of the characters kind of disappeared. And the end was a bit abrupt, I thought my epub file was missing the last pages or something, but it wasn't. It is a shame because the rest of the book was so good.

I now Saul isn't everyone's 'cup o' tea' and I appreciate this. However this book is very dear to my heart. I read it when I was twelve back in 1977 and it kindled my desire to want to write.

Having recently re-read it i still enjoyed it. It did not impact me as much as the first few times around- but that was 30 plus years ago....And I suspect I have matured (at least a little).

I would still urge any fans of horror to at least give this book a shot if you have not already done so.

I've only read one other book by John Saul, The Manhattan Hunt Club, which I thought was an entertaining book. I had higher expectations because Suffer the Children is talked about as his best book. During October I like to read horror books to get in the Halloween spirit. I'm disappointed that I chose this book to be my first October read. My biggest complaint is that nothing much happened. The book makes it fairly clear who the villain is pretty early which eliminates any mystery or suspense. The biggest question ends up being "will they get caught?". The parents in the novel seemed very detached from their children and didn't seem to care what was happening in the neighborhood. The children were creepy but pretty cliché.

The creepiness of the scenes in the cave were enough to earn 2 stars. This is the type of book that I might have enjoyed when I was around 5th or 6th grade. As an adult I know there's a lot better out there. I'm not sure if they made a movie out of this book but it would likely make a better movie than a novel.

No sé si ponerle 2 estrellas o 4 porque no se si me gustó o no. me faltaron saber muchas cosas que no se desarrollan y se tocan muy por arriba que tienen que ver con el final.. por ej sarah, beth, y por otro lado yo como lectora saber lo que está pasando y que los personajes no se den cuenta, me desespera!!
salvo eso, es una historia interesante y te intriga mucho saber como va a terminar todo. no tuvo el final que yo esperaba,para nada.. y no se si me agrada o no.

NECESITO DISCUTIR ESTO CON ALGUIEN!!!

Finding this book was a rlly weird accident that I have basically no memory of but I’m so happy that I did

Ufff que historia tan tremenda me acabo de leer, no había leído algo tan grotesco, tan fuerte, en este libro vamos a conocer una familia llamada los Conger una familia muy adinerada, pero con una oscura leyenda, y un oscuro pasado.

En esta historia vamos a saber desde un principio quien es el asesino, y de como va a ir la trama el resto de la historia, pero no se vuelve nada tediosa al contrario se vuelve intensa por que vamos a ver asesinatos tan crueles y desgarradores que me hicieron poner la piel de gallina.

Los personajes son tremendos, el personaje principal no titubea a la hora de matar, de burlarse y de torturar a sus presas.

me gustaría ver una adaptación de este libro por que la historia vale la pena verla en la pantalla grande, les recomiendo demasiado este libro.

PUEDEN VER LA RESEÑA MAS COMPLETA AQUI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62Aah...

Este es el segundo libro que leo de John Saul y ha dejado la vara muy alta para los siguientes que encuentre del autor, la historia centra en una vieja advertencia dentro de la familia Conger, familia reconocida y respetada en Port Arbello, esta advertencia esta con los Conger para evitar que los niños se acerquen al acantilado y sufran algún accidente, sin embargo, esa advertencia oculta algo más oscuro y siniestro, un suceso de hace más de 100 años, que perseguirá a la familia sin descanso, esta advertencia ha pasado de generación en generación hasta convertirse en leyenda, nadie había prestado atención en la leyenda de los Conger, sin embargo eventos recientes en Port Arbello despiertan la desconfianza y el recelo hacia John y Rose Conger así como de su prole, como lo fueron la desapariciones de niños y una agresión de John hacia Sarah Cogner, su hija, un hombre y su familia trastornados en una situación muy comprometedora, ya que las desapariciones se llevan a cabo en sus tierras, Dejad a los niños es una muy buena novela en más de algún momento no podía despegar los ojos de ella, y en otros tantos no tenia deseos de seguir leyéndola no porque fuera mala, la verdad es que era muy impactante lo que se te va narrando y como lo logra John Saul, en resumen un libro altamente recomendable.

I re-wrote an entire chunk of a review since I re-read it but it vanished. I'll give you the gist: I enjoyed it a bit more than I did when I first read it, but it's still got a slew of problems. Many questions go unanswered, namely how the Conger curse came to be and why, but at close to 400 pages, there's no shortage of corny dialogue and repetition of sequences.

It's fascinating that a publisher chose THIS book to get behind in the wake of the Horror boom given it's short on so many of the ingredients that made those books successful. This is clearly a case of great, "right place-right time" marketing, because John Saul is simply not a very good or engaging writer.

However, it's got some great moments, strong atmospheric descriptions of a New England coastal town and some really nasty stuff in a cave, including feline necrophilia and dismemberment/cruelty and torture of children that truly is horrific, but very low-brow.

I like the book enough to read more of Saul's stuff and give it a solid 3/5 as opposed to my initial 2.5. Give it a spin, if for no other reason than a solid horror reading history lesson.

My original review from September:

As a guy who reads quite a bit of horror fiction...it's basically ALL I read...it's pretty bizarre that I've not ever read anything by John Saul. I own TONS of his books, as they're readily available, and in mass quantity, at most used bookstores in my area. But until Suffer The Children, I've never read his work.

To be fair, I've mostly avoided it on account of Saul's reputation for being a particularly neutered horror experience; when you graduate from Christopher Pike, but aren't quite ready for King, Saul is where you land.

That's a pretty astute assessment.

But with that said, this guy has sold millions of books. And there's a reason why. His writing style is simple, accessible and light. His horror isn't SO horrific that most casual readers will be turned away. And he writes most frequently about the favorite topic of readers everywhere: messed up families. Splash a little supernatural around, a dash of gore and a heap of disturbing sexual content, but NEVER so disturbing to push anyone away, it's easy access horror reading for a more global audience than the standard horror auteur.

I suppose it's fair to say that Suffer The Children is fine, serviceable stuff that is like literary ramen. It goes in, it's quick and cheap and tastes okay enough to eat again the next time you're hungry and there's nothing else in the cupboard.

The greatest failure of STC is it's hopelessly dated dialogue, which is meandering and generally pretty bad, seeming to be pulled from a 70s TV movie. This is compounded by Saul's choice of storytelling, which is mostly delivered BY dialogue as opposed to narration. The generally light storyline is spoon-fed to us by the paper thin characters.

Whether or not it sold a million copies in 1977 is pretty irrelevant at this point, because the book is now a story you've read at least a dozen times before...an old curse rears its ugly head on a family through their adolescent daughter, who does some fairly atrocious things throughout the novel...it's been done before, during and after this book, and infinitely better. Despite its bestseller status and reasonable reputation of it's author, one could very well yank the cover off and throw a skeleton on it, and it would sit quite nicely with the midlist of what Zebra was churning out a decade later.

I guess it's a reasonable horror history lesson and readers could do much worse, but by-and-large, this things strictly middle of the road reading.

2.5/5, almost a three during some particularly nasty moments in a cave...

An enjoyable read. With twists and turns. Had me,going wanting to see what happens next. Hoping the villain gets her just desserts. Unfortunately, i didnt like the ending. It felt unfair, the father got away way too easy for his infidelity. The mother just took it all with little fight.

But, its def worth the 3 stars. Finished this,much faster than i expected.

Though I don't enjoy john SAul's work as much as other horror wrriter's, I have to say "Suffer the children" has been a mouthful of fresh air.
The subject is amazing, and the beginning of the book sent chills down my spine! I would have never expected the story to twist the way it did, but I was so pleased to discover the twists and turns in it, on the way. I definetelly think this is one of Saul's best books!
I gave it just 4 stars beacuse I will never really like the way Saul writes. It has something stiff in it, and I just like it with a little more flow in it.

Like everyone else I read a lot of horror in my teen years, and I read a number of books by Saul. And now I can't remember a thing about any of them.

Audio - 4.5 Stars
Story - 4 Stars