Blender Babies

Trigger warnings: grotesque violence and very acute misogyny. Avoid if extreme horror isn’t your thing.

I liked parts of Blender Babies, but unfortunately the book is predictable and unrealistic.

You're supposed to believe in a world that suddenly goes consumption mad for baby juice called 'adreno', but instead of being a satire it’s dead serious with mild twists of humor only!

A bit like Cormac McCarthy's The Road: open, alone, abandoned and vulnerable, but weak and unplanned in comparison.

There's little or no built-up tension, world building or character development.

Plus multiple scenes where you go, nah people don't behave like that - practically all the time - because of unrealistic behavior, constant gaffs and weedy errors.

The baby fiends themselves are not the underlying problem - people behave in unbelievably sordid, depraved and despicable ways, and why not - they're on the edge, fighting for survival, drug-fueled and rabid, but the main characters - the main people you're supposed to be rooting for - are weak and negligible as you couldn’t care what happens to them, win or lose.

The wimpy, voyeuristic school-boyish element got on my nerves as well, constantly spotting and spying the sordid action while weakly wobbling into the next depraved circus attraction.

I didn’t hate it however, and I'm giving this 3 stars for entertainingly blowing the cobwebs away and for not getting bogged down, as well as for having a strong voice and not being afraid of what others think.

Jon Athan has an imagination and I won't rule out reading more of his books for disposable entertainment in the future, but he blows through material without proper planning and that’s a problem.

Throwaway nonsense that should have been a comedy or tongue-in-cheek satire.

An extra point for acknowledging the harmful repetitive cycle of addiction - I feel the author on that one - but eye-rollingly forgettable nonetheless.