This was a book that I had kept my eye on since I first heard about it. It’s premise has this merging of technology and horror and I thought it would be interesting to see where that would go. Here is my review:
The Dark Net is a real and dangerous place, existing in the far reaches of the Web. Some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies, or traffic in drugs. Now, an ancient darkness has decided to use this platform for its own agenda. This force is threatening to spread virally into the real world unless it can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew: 12- year-old Hannah, who has just been given a visual prosthetic to combat her blindness, and is wondering why she can see shadows around certain people; Lela; a technophobic journalist who has found a story no one wants her to uncover; Mike Juniper who suffers from personal – and literal – demons; and Derek, a hacker with a streak of justice. They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains and what they are up against.
I really wanted to love this novel, and with its premise, it gave every indication that I would enjoy this story. But unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The story is told from multiple perspectives. In this case, I found none of the perspectives interesting. In fact, I didn’t really like any of the characters (especially Lela, who I found intolerable). Even though the author had ensured that he gave the backstory of the main characters, I had this constant feeling like the descriptions were just surface level; they didn’t have much emotional depth to them. Whenever I thought the author would get deeper into something, there would be a switch in perspective or scene that would throw me off. It also felt as if this book was trying to tie in all of these random aspects to make them come together and tell a cohesive tale; while it did all tie up, it just wasn’t done in an authentic way. Some things were put together in a way that was far too convenient to believe, and it made me fall out of the story. I wish there had been more depth to the entire story, not just random wikipedia facts to inform the readers about the Dark Net. In the end, this story just didn’t flow well and had characters that were hard to connect with on all levels. However, I did like the demonic aspects so I’m giving this a 2/5 stars.
Happy reading ~