Group Read #1 April 2021-Suffer the Children

[King James]

Sadly I couldn't read this as it wasn't on the kobo store 😭

[Frances]

I'm about half way through, trying to hurry to be done in time to start the May books. so far, disturbing ideas but very little actual movement plot-wise. The stuff with the cat really bothers me too. I can't stomach animal cruelty of any kind, especially against cats. Really puts me off a book that I was already disenchanted with.

[Maura]

I'm not really sure yet how I feel about the lack of explanation at the end...

(view spoiler)[Like, it was Beth's ghost possessing Elizabeth and lashing out because she was angry about what her father did to her. I've found some plot synopsis's that say she's possessed by the ghost of "a child murderer", but Elizabeth talks to the spirit multiple times and calls her Beth.

But was there some supernatural reason her father raped and killed Beth or that Jack Conger beat Sarah? Was it because of the "Gates of Hell" in the cave, or were they both just pieces of shit?

I feel like the author meant for us to sympathize with Jack and assume he was possessed when he attacked Sarah...but Jack f*cking sucked, right? I did not like him or his "Can't everyone just get over it already?" attitude but I'm not sure if this is a generational thing and if people reading this book when it came out would have been like "Yeah, his wife should get off his back about it, poor guy. He has no choice BUT to sleep with his secretary about it."

I listened to a podcast recently about the Satanic Panic of the 80's; it made the case that American society kind of only accepted that child abuse existed in the 70's and became a little obsessed for a while, the way it does. Then, the panic was a reaction; people didn't want to believe that it was something that parents really perpetrated against their own children so in a weird way, it was comforting to think that there was a secret network of satanists who were going around systematically abusing children instead.

So in a way, it's kind of interesting that it's unclear what was driving the fathers to attack their own daughters, if it was some demonic force or just their own inner demons, but I'm kind of disappointed that the main focus was on Beth's misplaced revenge.
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[Frances]

Still slogging through this one. Not a fan.

Partly, that's because there is WAY too much animal violence (the poor, poor cat) and partly because the subject is dark and depressing with the evil kids, but also incredibly slow paced.

And then there is. . . .

(view spoiler)[The fact that the dad casually confesses to wanting to rape his daughter and the mistress is just cool with that. The mom, when she later finds out, is just jealous, and the psychiatrist doesn't seem that concerned either. This makes me hate absolutely everyone in the story, except (so far) Sarah. The idea of pedophilia just doesn't seem to bother anyone, and that addess to the depressing mish-mash of hard topics and the story's general lack of direction. (hide spoiler)]