REVIEW: We Are Monsters

We Are Monsters
Author: Brian Kirk

A doctor motivated by greed and unchecked ambition believes he has created a cure for schizophrenia. But the only way to prove the drug's capabilities is through testing....so he decides to test it on mental patients. While that is horrific enough as it is....it gets worse. When he gives the drug to a famous serial killer, there is an unforeseen side effect. This wonder drug sets the mentally ill free from their demons...by releasing that darkness into the world. The dark halls of the Sugar Hill Asylum now hold the inner demons of The Apocalypse Killer.

This is a horror story with an underlying point about how society views and treats those with mental illness. This story means a bit more to me because my family is currently experiencing the deterioration of an elderly parent with bipolar and the beginning stages of dementia. As I finished reading this book, she was involuntarily hospitalized for the second time in six weeks, so I had a bit of a different reaction to this book than some readers might. Society has a mindset about those with mental illness, often viewing them as bothersome annoyances rather than people with a medical issue. And medical treatment, at times, seems to just be experimenting with mixes of medication to keep them controllable and quiet, rather than an attempt to return them to a condition where they can function/survive within the world. It's a world filled with medications, doctors appointments, fear of hospitalization, and fears/experiences that other people don't understand. The horror of dementia is that there is no going back....there's no way to return a wonderful woman to who she was for almost 80 years. That person is gone....locked inside a short circuiting brain. What people see now is just an out of control, elderly woman with a foul mouth and nasty disposition. They don't realize that up until a year ago I never heard a cross word come out of her mouth, let alone strings of curse words and horrible, hurtful insults. It is soul-crushingly sad to see someone deteriorate slowly and permanently. And it's hard to maintain patience and kindness when she is angry/abusive/out of control. So, this story about a doctor seeking fame and fortune at the expense of the mentally ill really hit home with me. What if medical staff, or the public at large, could see and experience the horrible things that the mentally ill deal with that come from their own minds? What if those who look at a medical career as a way to become rich rather than a chance to do good and heal people were confronted with the downside of their actions?

Very scary story....with a bittersweet edge to it for me.

This is the first book by Brian Kirk that I have read. I will definitely be looking for more by this author. Enjoyable story....with a hard truth beneath the horror.

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Flame Tree Press. All opinions expressed are entirely my own**