Okay… so I just finished. This book was filled with all sorts of twists and turns and was actually broken up into 3 parts- 100 years ago, like 50 years in the future and the present. Throughout the book, you are eluded to some tremendous violence and a legend that plagues the Conger family but it isn’t until the end of the book, the present that the pieces fall into place. My little brother had this book and I noticed it was as available on Audible plus so I gave it a listen and read along. Full disclaimer, cats and kids are killed so if you’re not able to stomach that sort of content, this book is not for you. I wanted to read a spooky book for October and even though my thought are still racing, I’m glad I saw this book through. The narration was very good and you can really feel the terror that this book was emoting. I gave this book 5 stars because I couldn’t put it down. I had to see what happened over 100 years of content. It is highly disturbing but I highly recommend.

This one was a fun read, John Saul always produces intriguing horror thrillers, and this was no different. The small-town setting really made for an unsettling atmosphere.

I will be honest. This book..is one of the most genuinely frightening, creepiest, darkest and most terrifying books I have ever read.

I first read it back in the back when horror was almost all I read! Well..not really but it was a big part of my reading materials. That has changed through the years.

I still dig Saul though. I grew up with him. But TO THIS DAY..I cannot reread this. It is so SO SOO scary.

My lovely mamacita turned me onto this book. She could not sleep with the lights off after she read this.

Basic plot? No..I will give you snippets..two sisters..in a rural small town..Elizabeth and Sara..Elizabeth is beautiful and charming. Sara has some issues.

Parents have marital issues..many.

Children are going missing.

Does not sound much different from what you've read right? Well..it is!

I cannot say why without spoilers.

SPOILERS;

A hole. In the ground. Living people. Animals. A cat. A cat gruesomely murdered. Children emotionally tortured while forced to hold..and dance..with said cat.

That's just about five percent of it.

I doubt I will ever read this again because of the fear factor and the horrific animal violence which went over my head when I first read this. Well hey when your ten everything goes over your head. If you never want to sleep again and do not mind horrific animal violence read this book. Oh man Saul you really went overboard on this one.

Kinda sums up what happened to this story. Its basically like a horror movie of the week. Which is fine. It was a lot longer than it needed to be in some areas and confusing in others. It's disturbing to say the least. Not necessarily the stuff that happens, as disturbing as that was, but the way the characters react to most of it. Just ignoring it or not discussing it at all.

Its your average sleepy town, families that have been there for generations, creepy kids. Clueless parents. Things that would bother normal human beings seem to be brushed aside or completely ignored.

Official thought? Meh.

Dejad a los niños John Saúl
Editorial círculo de lectores, edición pasta dura año 1977 título original "suffer the children"

What an awesome traditional horror novel this is! The opening chapter which reveals a past crime of the Conger family and the set up for the story is horrific, sadistic and had me on the edge of my seat.

We settle into the book in present day and meet the current Congers which consist of mom, dad, Elizabeth who is 13 and Sarah a small child. A legend of an old curse and a cave in the woods has plagued the family for years. The Conger children over the generations have been forbidden to enter the woods surrounding their home.

However it appears as past history is coming back to haunt the family, children of the town are disappearing, Sarah is a victim of an attack which she can not remember and has become withdrawn into herself and no longer speaks or interacts, a strange portrait of a young girl is found in the attic of the home which looks exactly like Elizabeth.

The woods start calling, the curse of the Congers may not be an old made up tale after all passed down from generation to generation. Something wants the children to suffer.....

An absolutely beautifully woven story full of intrigue and twists. We slowly learn more and more of the family as it progresses and what supernatural elements may be lurking within the woods. This is what I love about vintage and traditional horror books. They take there time luring you in keeping you in suspense and offer brutal descriptions of terror. The ending is effective and actually left me with goosebumps. Amazing!

been ages since I read a John Saul novel, as in 30+ years. And suddenly I remember, it's always a possessed child....

I had read this back in high school and forgotten most of it. This is a very good slow burn horror with some truly gruesome moments. I wanted the ending to be more satisfying, but overall a great read!

Trigger warnings abound in this book, so if cruelty towards animals and/or children (it's not super explicit, but definitely present) flips the switch for you, avoid this one.

For decades now, despite my interest in horror fiction, I always thought John Saul was kind of a joke. And the thing is, I've no idea where this idea came from. I certainly hadn't read anything of his that would put that notion in my head. All I can think is that through the years of browsing the Horror section in various used bookstores, there were always, I mean like there was some unwritten arcane rule that things had to be this way, a litany of John Saul paperbacks along the shelves. And every year, like clockwork, a new title appeared. Somewhere along the line, my brain must have looked at that level of output and been like, "This dude's the Danielle Steel of horror fiction."

Now, I mean no disrespect to Danielle Steel or her legions of readers, but at a certain point you have to assume that anybody who churns out novels like that either has a legion of ghost writers working for them, or that the content cannot possibly be any good. So ever since I got seriously interested in Horror in the very early 90s, I had (with, I reiterate, zero evidence to back this up) pegged John Saul as a guy who couldn't possibly be worth reading. So I read King, I read Koontz, and every time I seemed about ready to pick up something by Saul and give him the benefit of the doubt, my hand would gravitate to some other author, some other title, and I'd go home with that instead.

Then a massive collection of Saul's early works appeared in the bookstore where I work, and I decided there really was no good reason for me to deliberately keep avoiding him when I give so much space to absolute trash on my shelves already. Ergo, I bought all nineteen of them, and decided the best place to start is usually the beginning, and that's Suffer the Children, so here we are.

I went in with zero expectations, and finished with an attitude of "Holy shit, what the hell has been wrong with me just avoiding this guy's stuff for the last thirty years?". I won't know until I explore further, but presuming this book isn't a one-off and the rest of his literary output couldn't live up to his freshman outing, I think we've got ourselves a winner, folks. Suffer the Children is a dark, nasty little piece of work involving murder, possession, cruelty, sexual assault, and other bits and bobs of depravity. Saul isn't as folksy and long-winded as King, as fast-paced and breakneck as Laymon, or as direct and just-the-facts-ma'am as Ketchum. The story feels like it goes just as long as it needs to go, and the last thirty or so pages are very much a kick in the balls to anyone expecting some kind of positive resolution to the story. There is much suffering of children, and the book ends with the promise that there will be more to come.

I don't know, maybe five stars is too high for this and it's really more of a "four stars and change" manuscript, but given the way I treated his books over the years, I'm dropping a five on this one to try and atone for that mistake. This is one hell of a first novel, and I'm definitely intrigued to see what Saul has to offer with his sophomore effort, Punish the Sinners.

This one's in omnipresent pov, and I'd missed this style a bit. It used to be fairly common in genre fiction. Otherwise, pretty nasty and had good suspense. Quality possession-ish story.

La relectura no fue tan traumática... maduré!
O no dejé pasar mucho tiempo, aunque lo debo haber leído por primera vez hace como 6/7 años.
Aún así sigue siendo una lectura bastante fuerte, con momentos bien creepys y ese final me va a poner los pelos de punta siempre.

El libro comienza lento, ves venir los sucesos desde antes, nada impresiona, nada causa sorpresa.
No se sabe nunca es lo que le sucede a Elizabeth, al parecer todo es parte de una "maldición" y la obligan a actuar sin voluntad propia.
Es verdad, hubo sangre y algunas escenas algo perturbadoras, sin embargo, nada extraordinario, ni que cause miedo. Al contrario, te irrita leer como los protagonistas siempre andan discutiendo sin llegar a nada en todo el libro.
Lo que más decepciona es el final. De por si, nada queda resuelto, nunca sabemos que paso en realidad, todo vuelve donde empezó. Te quedas preguntando ¿por qué sucedió todo, si al final ni importancia tiene? Solo vemos una familia atormentada y disfuncional, te cansan todos y no simpatizas con nadie. Un libro absurdo y aburrido.
Me da la impresión que el autor no sabía cómo justificar el por qué de las muertes y lo más sencillo que se le ocurrió fue una maldición absurda con una espíritu en busca de una venganza ridícula. Hasta ahora se cataloga como uno de los peores libros que he leído en mi vida.