The Last Days of Jack Sparks

The Last Days of Jack Sparks chronicles the main character’s downward spiral, starting with an exorcism he witnesses in Italy until his death. Jack Sparks is an arrogant guy who sets out to debunk the supernatural. He watches this exorcism, which to him is clearly fake, and not long after, someone posts a video to his YouTube account that seems fairly convincing evidence of the supernatural. Jack sets out to find whoever made this video and a whole lot of mayhem ensues, ultimately culminating in his death. This book is published posthumously by his brother as a means of dealing with his grief.

The only reason I didn’t give this book a higher rating is because of the incredible amount of foul language. Do the British actually swear that much? I’m a bit prim when it comes to swear words.

It’s new to me to read a book where you already know that the main character is going to die. I want to say I was still cheering him on to somehow defeat it, but Jack Sparks was not a nice guy and very full of himself. You can’t help but feel it’s inevitable that he’s going to bite it. It turns out his self-absorbedness is his downfall in the end.

There are some very gory moments in this book, as apparently the supernatural things in this world will kill you and in pretty much the worst ways possible. If there are two things I learned from this book, it’s these: don’t spend all your life only caring about yourself and ABSOLUTELY never laugh at the Devil.