Review: Kill Radio

Kill Radio by Lauren Bolger
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

He stood in the dark bathroom doorway, holding a handmade radio. 

Five year old Rory sees things, houses on fire and a green grid that seems to underline the real world. Realizing that it scares his mom and she doesn't see the same things he does, he starts to keep his visions to himself, until one day he turns on a handmade radio. In the mad dash to leave Chad, Rory's dad, Rachelle didn't even know she had the radio that used to have Chad madly tinkering away with. When Rory turns it on and a high pitch scream sound emits and suddenly a mad coyote is breaking into their home, Rachelle can sense the nightmare of what Chad turned into, happening again. With her bestfriend, a warlock, and helping stranger, Rachelle will have to work to figure out what is going on and visit her past if she wants a future for her and her son. 

“Lake of fire...” Rachelle's quiet whisper was involuntary. 

Kill Radio was a creepy building horror with some of the usual suspects, ghosts, demons, occult members, witches, magic, and possession. The story gets going right away with Rory running scared and getting a stranger named Stanton to come back to his home to help his mom, who he says is being attacked by a monster. The story, in a structured style it liked to use for the rest of the book, then jumps back in time and readers learn what happened to cause Rory to be on the run. I don't have to be linear reader, so I didn't mind the flashbacks and thought the style did add to some of the thriller aspects. What I did have problems with at times was some continuity, Stanton seems to be forgotten in a scene and at one time Rachelle was in a rush to get Rory to daycare but then that's forgotten as she goes back in the house to talk with someone. I also thought Stanton's character struggled in the story. He starts to sleepover at Rachelle's house because she's scared but this guy must be able to sleep through a World War because he never wakes up and it's as if he's not even there most of the time. It became clear why the author had him lingering around when you get to the end and he plays an important role but his character just never felt utilized quite right in the vast majority of story. 

Rachelle opened her mouth to scream, but her breath caught in her throat. Its legs lengthened. It looked like a deer with no torso or hind legs. 

You won't get the full story on the radio until the end but it's obvious that it's some kind of portal opener or attraction for demons, as they start to show up after it gets turned on. The demons were suitably creepy, even if I wasn't fully on board with the plotting of why they were possessing people but I did like the twist on how and why ghosts were used in the story. Rachelle gets a little romance arc when she gets a new boss, James, at work, who then turns out to have secrets of his own. James background of why and how he became a warlock wasn't quite worked out as well as I would have liked, it reminded me of Stanton and the just go with it, because the story needs his magic knowledge. By sixty percent the puzzle pieces are mostly together for the characters and the final battle is building when Rachelle realizes she will have to face Chad again. 

They were coming up from deeper within now. From the underworld. From hell. The bad ones were coming. And it would only get worse and worse. 

The ending gave us flashbacks from Chad and we learn why the radio was made and how Chad has been haunted by it. This leads to a horror action battle with ghosts, demons, dads, and magic. Like I said, it becomes clear why some characters, Stanton, were left lingering around (except for Gaia?? she was Rachelle's bf but not much bfing from her and felt like a pretty empty character) and why James had to have been a warlock. Around 70% I felt it started to lose steam because of some of the issues I mentioned, not fully worked out or put together well in some aspects, but the story did have a pretty cool concept and some creeptastic imagery scenes if looking to dive into some fun Fall vibes.

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