Title: The Jinx
Author: D.F. Lamont
Publisher: Self-published
Published: September 21, 2011
Source: Author  
(GOODREADS|| AMAZON) 

The Jinx is the story of Stephen Grayson, a 13-year old whose run of bad luck gets so bad he worries he is endangering his family. Fearing he is cursed, he flees home to protect his family, only to find that he is in the middle of a tug-of war between a cult obsessed with order and misshapen monsters known as “Chaons” who seem bent on hunting him down.

I've never been asked to review anything middle-grade  before and for anyone who reads this blog regularly - I could name you fans - will know that I've been dipping my foot in the the much more adult realm; so you probably understand the depth of my skepticism that went something along the line of  'will this book make me dumber?' - yeah, a pretty dumb question. One thing that I learnt from The Jinx is that not all middle-grade books sound like they are written by their audience, this certainly didn't. Furthermore, this book was perfect because it is super-fast and at times hilarious - which I did feel a bit guilty about.

I started to read and I was wholly surprised to find it amusing; he falls of a bike!! From there it is a descent into disaster and nothing goes right. It's just a series of extremely embarrassing events that I, and most middle-graders, would certainly find no problem relating to it. The effects of people mocking him was something that made me think, it wasn't nice and, admittedly, I probably would have been one of the people who laughed - thus why I feel guilty.

I think Stephen running away was not very plausible and the transition from him thinking he has bad luck to then thinking he is dangerous and that nobody should be around him was not subtle at all - it was just a massive, giant leap.. This really hindered the rest of the book for me because I couldn't get over the leap that Mr. Lamont has created. I carried on reading and forgot about that because Stephen crying in his room is definitely not as cool as Stephen coming into contact with monstrous creatures.

In conclusion, the book is extremely well written but for the intended audience I think maybe some of the ideas are a bit complex but the idea between the balance of chaos and order was certainly an intriguing concept. A short, fun read that will not fail to entertain.