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The Dark Net by Benjamin Percy (Review #136)

"The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. This force is threatening to spread virally into the real world unless it can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew:

Twelve-year-old Hannah - who has been fitted with the Mirage, a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness - wonders why she sees shadows surrounding some people.

Lela, a technophobic journalist, has stumbled upon a story nobody wants her to uncover.

Mike Juniper, a one-time child evangelist who suffers from personal and literal demons, has an arsenal of weapons stored in the basement of the homeless shelter he runs.

And Derek, a hacker with a cause, believes himself a soldier of the Internet, part of a cyber army akin to Anonymous.

They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains.

Set in present-day Portland, The Dark Net is a cracked-mirror version of the digital nightmare we already live in, a timely and wildly imaginative techno-thriller about the evil that lurks in real and virtual spaces, and the power of a united few to fight back. "

Review:
This one was hard to get into. I’m not sure what it was but I felt like the exposition really dragged. The synopsis leads me to think we have four main characters, four points of view. So when the majority of the chapters are in the POV of Lela, I was like “we still have MORE intros to get through, C'MON!” By chapter 9, the plot was already moving along, the action was packin', the train had left the station, and we still didn’t know who Derek was (OK we did but like it was very brief and no one remembered).

Anyways, despite all this, the story was way more hellish and gory than I was expecting.... it was friggin' awesome. It is definitely an adult book, so those of a preteen age might wanna wait on this. A lot of demons, genitalia, mention of rape, gross mutilated bodies, the whole nine yards. It was brutal. I mean, the scene with Chester in the top secret basement of the homeless shelter? NASTY. Awesome.

Lela was for sure the main character of this story, I don’t care what the synopsis says, we were with her for the majority of the book seriously. Juniper was probably second on that list but even he was barely there compared to Lela. Then Hannah, who was so friggin' cool, I want her to be MY cool aunt, OK (Jarvis got NOTHING on our girl). Then Derek since we didn’t actually meet him til the end, also he was annoying. And the SYNOPSIS doesn’t mention Sarin!!!! SARIN!!! THE ICONIC SARIN. She deserved a mention. Any-who, I don’t know what I was expecting with this one, but I am so happy it surprised me. I was completely here for it.

The ending I’m kind of on the fence about just because there were like 3 climax points. Each time I was like, did we win the battle? Oh we’re still going? It was hard to understand I guess in the sense that I couldn’t follow along with what needed to be accomplished, what the next goal was. Like when Juniper was racing down the highway. That whole chapter I was like “why are we here?? Why are we doing this???” I mean it’s explained later but I spent a whole chapter being like WHAT IS HAPPENING???

IDK. The action and scene descriptions were amazing; super scary and adrenaline inducing, and just overall enjoyable. So I go back and forth on how I feel about it. I think maybe if this was a graphic novel, maybe it would be that much better, but for now for the most part enjoyed this read. If you read it, let me know your thoughts!!!


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