A review by pbraue13
Suffer the Children by John Saul

3.0

John Saul is clearly a talented writer and knows how to spin a yarn. This book starts super atmospheric and engaging, luring you along a path that is riddled with dead children, family curses, and dark secrets. But I will say that after the first half of the book it lost its appeal a bit for me. I think perhaps because I'm someone reading this in the 2020s and this is a book written in the 70s? Or that I am just a sensitive person to these things? But this book got gratuitously gross and intense and almost exploitative. I know with books in the 70s of this nature that may be par for the course, but when it regards children (as the title suggests) and it is handled in a tactless way, seeking to titilate and shock the viewer, I want to put the book down and not return. It's what Stephen King would call a "gross out" horror novel, filled with gore and violence portrayed in exploitatively descriptive ways. Though the writing was initially so beautiful, it veered into a rushed hack-job towards the end (and not in the fun "hack-job" way these books usually go for). I would say if you want an atmospheric and deeply upsetting book about child abuse and murder and don't care about the problematic aspects, here you go. If not I think you should read something that handles the topic in a tactful way.