Review: The Infernals by John Connolly

Title: The Infernals
Author: John Connolly

Series:
Samuel Johnson #2

Genre: Young Adult 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Release Date: October 18th, 2011

Source: Publisher

Order the Book: Amazon

Samuel Johnson is in trouble. Not only is he in love with the wrong girl, but the demon Mrs. Abernathy is seeking revenge on him for his part in foiling the invasion of Earth by the forces of evil. She wants to get her claws on Samuel, and when Samuel and his faithful dachshund, Boswell, are pulled through a portal into the dark realm, she gets her chance.

Long before I could read this book, I had a few unanswered questions in my head. The first one was: After reading The Burning Soul by John Connolly, and seeing his writing style, so serious, so mysterious and dark with a really complicated book about murderers, victims, detectives and that kind of thing, it was impossible for me to think that the same author also writes books like this one with a completely different topic. From a thriller to a young adult book, a funny young adult book. I mean, that is a big change. Some authors are really good in the kind of books they write, and sometimes, when they try to change their style, or the topic, they run into a big concrete wall. So I was worried to read a big fiasco.

But my question was immediately answered when I read just the first page. From the first paragraph the author delights us with an introduction more than funny, that made me smile and laugh more than once. Not only you find the comedy in the main text, but also in the author's notes you find humor, and comments that for a moment I thought they were written only for me.

My second question was: The Infernals is the second book of the series. And I hadn't read the first book. So, logically my question was if I was going to be able to understand it. The answer also was on the first page. No.

Even though the story is quite simple, and the author tries to explain everything to the readers  who haven't read the book, it was difficult for me to get into the story and to understand perfectly what was going on. The characters mixed in my head and I had some troubles recognizing them. 

Overall the book was quite fun and I highly recommend it to everybody who loves this kind of stories. But hey! Read the first book first! : )

Happy Reading!

Pretty Good!

John Connolly is the author of Every Dead Thing, Dark Hollow, The Killing Kind, The White Road, Bad Men, Nocturnes, and The Black Angel. He is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website.