I Was Ready for the Monster to Eat Them. A Review of Freaks.

 Good news and bad news. I think this is a good story about bullied kids getting superpowers. The bad news is that I didn't like any main character in the book. After awhile, I rooted for the monster to devour every one of them.

There is no law that says the main characters have to be likable. But, they do have to be interesting. The bullied kids were physically and emotionally abused, but they were insulting and belittling to each other, too. They were bored by their teachers, bored by their parents, bored by pretty much everything, and their answer to anything was, "Whatever." Haven't they ever heard the phrase, "A bored person is a boring person?" The most annoying kid was even mad that his poverty-stricken, overworked mother bought him a desktop rather than a laptop computer.  Maybe 15-year-olds are bored and mad at everything, but I don't want to read about it.

Honestly, I wanted to start bullying these kids because they weren't even nice to each other. And, the bully friends weren't nice to each other either. And, the Feds weren't nice to each other. Nobody was nice to each other. Just let the monster eat them all.

It's an exciting story, but I couldn't drum up any sympathy for 98% of the characters. Whether bad guys or good guys, they complained, they insulted, they were bored. They set fire to whole bunches of trees! Yikes! Their grammar was horrid, even the one who was college bound. Two more books are coming in the series. I hope the superpowered kids get a little humanity. 

Great cover. 

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to review this eARC