The Ritual by R.R Walters - Book Review

The Ritual starts off with two kids killing a girl in what looks to be… well, a ritual. Their father takes a job to do some photography in the Yucatan province of Mexico at some old tombs.

But the story is mostly about his wife (who is very lonely), and his two kids who are sacrificing people to try and summon a god. The mother thinks she’s going crazy with all the strange stuff happening to her and her family. It goes on like this until the end.

This book is not good. It’s even terrible. Just from the very first scene when the kids are killing the woman, you get a feel that it’s going to be a D rated movie plot. They are a pair of beach bum kids with a sudden appetite for murder, but they’re not in any distinguishable way interesting or appealing.

The characters are dull and boring, with excruciating dialogue between them. They don’t even sound human. Everything they say is robotic. The story rattles on but it’s vague and nothing really exciting happens.

There’s some possession, a bit of sex, and some violence. There’s a serious lack of sympathy or empathy for the characters. It also feels like it’s missing some crucial points, like how and why was all of this stuff happening.

I would rate it a solid 2/10 because it should never have been written in the first place. How it got into my possession or anywhere near a bookstore shelf is a mystery. The ending is a practice in fruitlessness.

There are no lessons learned and the horror isn’t extreme enough to warrant a book about nothing. It’s just a downright bad, straight to DVD movie – written in a short book that was nothing more than a waste of my time.