Because of spooky season, October’s pick for our book club was Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians.
There is plenty of native american lore throughout the novel, which is always great to learn about! In fact, this was one of the things I really did enjoy about the novel – a fresh horror idea. An elk type being going around causing trouble? Sounds… like something I wouldn’t want to be dealing with.
The depictions of certain scenes REALLY come to life as well – it really shows the author’s prowess in making the reader forget they are looking at words (or in my case, listening to them) and instead having us really see what is going on. Although the language revolving some of these is very plain, colloquial language, it is done in almost a poetic way in which each word has a heavy weight to it to really make the scene come to life.
Personally, this was about the only things I enjoyed…which was not enough for me to really enjoy the whole book.
I thought the story was a little…incoherent. VERY slow moving. A few sections or elements of the novel where also…almost irrelevant to what i considered to be the main story. I found myself having to re-listen to many sections because I’d simply space out – not a good sign.
If you’re into horror, I’d encourage you to read it; I personally don’t enjoy horror type books, though I always try my best to understand and enjoy the book for what it is within its genre – I just couldn’t even do that with this one.
My rating: ~2/5.