Reads like your standard horror movie sequel.

Their is nothing particularly wrong with 'Offspring', Jack Ketchum's follow up to the brutally twisted 'Off-Season'. It hit's all the points that made the first novel get a solid four star rating from me. The violence when it comes, is inventive in it's twisted-ness, the stalking of the ferals following and planning their attack on the family is intricate and suspenseful like the first. Yet, the entire time I was reading this, I couldn't help feeling in a constant state of déjà vu.

There are some elements here that lend themselves well to the sequel. The main sheriff returns for the sequel, and is given a bit of a redemption storyline for being a part of the rather bleak finale of the first, but at the same time it also feels quite standard. He feels bad, so he has naturally left the force and become an alcoholic, yet the return of the cannibals draws him back to working with the police allowing him closure.

The cannibals themselves are featured more this time around and even given a viewpoint every now and again, which I didn't really think helped with the suspense. There chapters were a bit too basic and they were made a little too human for my liking, I preferred them as the animalistic savages that they were in the first.

There is also a bit of a cheesy domestic abuse storyline, where the husband tries to assimilate with the feral people because he's also committed a murder and he thinks they don't see him as prey. It wasn't terrible, but I'll admit to rolling my eyes once or twice.

Overall, a decent and enjoyable (probably the wrong word) sequel that doesn't distance itself from the original enough to stand out. The final entry in the series, 'The Woman'' seems to give a completely different concept for the story though so I will no doubt read that at some point in the future.

My sick mind continues to be entertained by this series.

4.5

I love Jack ketchum books ever since I first read off-season which is one of my favourite horror books of all time. Offspring didn’t disappoint like many sequel books do. It was still bloody but it focused more on the relationships of the characters in the book. However no matter how much I like this book it will never (for me at least) come close to how much I loved off season but this was still a very good book.