The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

 

"This is all you need, isn't it? Just one good friend. Somebody you can be stupid with. Somebody who'll peel you off the ground, prop you against the wall."

Ricky, Lewis, Cass, and Gabe have been friends for a long time, but the ten-year anniversary of a hunting trip gone wrong is upon them and no one wants to talk about it. And now an entity is stalking them, like a shotgun blast from the past.

This book was okay but I wasn't wowed.

I liked the characters; they were all a little rough around the edges and it gave them an air of realness because they weren't perfect angels. Sometimes it's the imperfections that matter most.

The book blurb on GoodReads states, "...a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American Indian experience." 

And I know when it came out it was one of the best horror novels of 2020. That's how it got added to my TBR list. Now it's officially been moved from TBR to just R and I can honestly say it was way over my head, I must have missed something. I didn't find it to be psychologically compelling nor am I woke enough to understand the identity politics behind it. I'm not sure it was even that scary because the first half is so confusing I spent it trying to figure out what was going on. And why? Why now?

The second half is way better, but the writing style changed a bit to make it better. Once we got away from Lewis and his deranged narration and the story became a little more omniscient. There's more flexibility with omniscience because the story isn't limited to just one person. It also gave the story room to become creepier. So we won't know why now on the tenth anniversary and not the 20th or the 5th, but we eventually get to a point where, okay this thing is happening. This thing is happening and it's scary.

It wasn't a bad read, it just wasn't a great read, it was somewhere in the middle. The writing was good, the characters were great, but overall, the story lacked focus. If you are super sensitive to horror and you are looking for a good scare this will probably get the job done. But if you aren't sensitive to horror, you might not find this story to be particularly frightening. A few scenes are a bit bloody and violent so if gore puts you off this is not the book for you.