The Malum

JD, a fifteen-year-old boy, and his friends accidentally release an ancient evil by touching a black pillar they find in the local cemetery.

Whatever comes out of it instantly slashes his friend out of existence and then starts similarly making everyone else disappear as it slowly spreads...

Then while figuring out what to do, JD researches whatever he can at the library where they are found by a man named Crowley who tells them everything and recruits them in the fight against this evil which he calls dark evil. The Malum that was unleashed will eventually consume everyone in the entire world...

It was a little odd that he just takes these young teens off to fight and kill things with him and everyone is okay with that but the story just rolls with it and expects you too as well. As it went along I stopped worrying about that but it didn't seem entirely realistic at first.

I initially groaned at the name Crowley and thought, of course, that kind of character is named that! But he is given reason to be as he is the son of a reimagined historical figure that shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

They are all gifted and can sense and kill this kind of dark evil, as well as their helpers named the Hexies. We have a lot of lore and things to set up in this book and it goes over it in detail and often to make it stick. Joining in their fight are good witches who while named so sure spend a lot of time torturing for information and killing these creatures but hey it's a dark setting I guess.

Maybe a little too dark at times. I'm not saying I'd want the subject matter to be taken lightly and treated as a joke but it was always played completely straight forward and it came off a little dry at times.

Another issue is Crowley tells the group of teens the backstory of his father and the fight and it's a long, long tale. It pretty much takes up half the book and is just told all at once and gave the story an odd pace. When it switched back to the group in the present I found it a little jarring trying to get back into their tale as we spent so much time in it.

But once I got into the story and the flow of it I found the book to be pretty good. There was a load of violence, gore, and action and the horror elements are always there giving it a very foreboding feeling. I wasn't sure at the end if it was a standalone story or there will be more to come because while the events of the story were concluded it was still left open to more.