A review by ramunepocky
The Cursed Among Us by John Durgin

3.75

 “The hard truth was that there were real life monsters that would never go away.” 

I enjoyed The Cursed Among Us a lot; it was very atmospheric and spooky, which, admittedly, it isn’t that hard to freak me out. But this really did freak me out so much and I couldn’t read it the second that it got dark because I was convinced I could see glowing orange eyes in every reflection and was constantly anticipating being murdered. There was a good amount of deaths too, varying from some tamer deaths to some really gross and gnarlier ones. I enjoyed the variety of deaths too; no two people died the same way and it was nice to see some variety rather than everyone just being stabbed to death. The writing was a little bit clunky, which was sometimes quite jarring, but not enough to take me out of the story or ruin the overall atmosphere of it. 

I liked the main characters and the four friends. Howie and Cory in particular reminded me of the Stranger Things kids as they had that kind of bond and those kinds of vibes. It was really sad to see Howie suffering through his father’s abuse and being more afraid of him than dealing with the unleashed evil plaguing the town. It was sad too that the only real father figure that he’d had in their film teacher, is the first person to be murdered. 

I don’t really think that I had a favourite character in this book as I never really formed that bond, or got too attached to anyone. Part of that was due to the fact that there was a rather large cast, and another part of that was due to the fact that most characters we got introduced to died in the same chapter, or a few chapters later. I did think that it was very sad though that Ryan lost his father, aimed to take revenge on her killer, whilst thinking his friends had deserted him, when in actuality, they were giving him space to grieve, and then dying himself before ever getting the chance to talk to them again or make amends. The same goes for Todd; he just died so unceremoniously without ever having the chance to make what he’d done under possession right.  

It was interesting to learn about the town and the coven there, and WHY there was a curse and how the woman who had become the demon was tied into it. It is so typical of the people responsible to try and act like they shouldn’t be accountable, and just bury what they’d done instead. They all got what was coming to them tbh, and maybe if they’d been more open about the curse and what had happened then the kids wouldn’t have stumbled upon her grave and let her out. 

I also really liked the open ending and how it built up to be like oh, it’s finally over…. Or is it?? That was a cool little feature, and I imagine that every single person in that little town is now six feet under. 

Overall, it was a very atmospheric and creepy book that I enjoyed reading.