Jesse thinks he’s caught a break when he, Emma (the girl of his dreams), and her friend are assigned by their newspaper to cover the opening weekend of a sprawling new state park. But the construction of the park has stirred an evil that has lain dormant for nearly a hundred years, and the three young people – as well as every man, woman, and child unlucky enough to be attending the Algonquin Falls grand opening – are about to encounter the most horrific creatures to ever walk the earth.
Savage Species by Jonathon Janz. Books # 1-5. Narrated by Todd Boyce. Published by Flame Tree Audio, October 2019. Run time of 13 hours and 13 minutes.
OOOOoooooph. This was a little bit of a rough read. D: I hate starting out a review negative, but I seriously felt that way from the very start!
So, first off, I had a real hard time liking any of the characters. And there are so many characters! I don’t know if this was done on purpose to make it easy to cheer for them getting killed off, or what? 
It was a bummer not really connecting with anyone.
Kind of along those lines, I really hated the whole baby side (?) plot. I didn’t care at all about these kids, their parents, or their drama. The baby plot felt like it just came out of nowhere and it was kind of confusing. Like, why did the creature go out of it’s way to go kidnap this one baby? How did it even find the baby? I don’t know. It just didn’t feel like it fit in with the other story taking place in the park. And then all of a sudden the baby story was the main focus? What the what? I don’t know, it just was a miss for me.
Speaking of things not working well…..man, the tone of this book is just out of whack! Where are some awkward moments where characters behaved in ways that didn’t seem to fit the gravitas of the situations there were in. I don’t know. The flow is just off some how. Maybe it worked better in the separate chapter (? Novella?) books instead of one big book?
Even though I have complained a lot so far, I don’t hate this book. The majority of the plot is a lot of fun. The creatures are cool looking and cause a GLORIOUS amount of chaos. The premise is fun! I mean, who doesn’t like underground creatures? Savage Species could have been so great! It just suffers from strange pacing and tone issues, with some unbelievable character actions.
Creature From The Book Lagoon 