Suffer the Children

Despite my devotion to my scheduled reading list (and its corresponding spreadsheet) I have been having a real slump in reading these last two weeks while I've been stuck in the middle of 3 books (yes, simultaneously), so I decided to go off-schedule and read something for fun. I decided to grab something off of the jam-packed "to be shelved" shelf in my library to get me out of the funk.

Suffer the Children is about Herod Syndrome, a disease that kills all children all over the world nearly simultaneously and instantly. Then the kids all come back, but they're hungry and the only thing that will satisfy them is human blood. A half pint of blood gives one kid an hour of life before they die again, so the supply is going to run out at some point. The story follows a handful of parents as they live this nightmare and decide how far they're willing to go to keep their kids alive.

The horror in this book was a like the first hill of a roller coaster. At first, even after the kids died, even when they came back, I didn't feel creeped out. We were on the way up that first big hill and it was all anticipation. I felt sympathetic grief for the parents, I felt sad that the kids had to die again after only a few hours, but not terror, not yet. Once that set in though, once each parent stepped over a line they never thought they'd cross, it was wonderfully creepy and scary all the way down.

I'm not sure I would pick up the other books by this author as they seem to be all zombie books, but I'm glad I read this one. I feel refreshed and ready to unstick myself from the middle of the other books.