Reviews with content warning for Panic attacks/disorders - The Angel of Indian Lake

I miss Jade Daniels already.

Stephen Graham Jones gutted me like a fish. Feel like Casey Becker hanging from a tree with my innards falling out.

There's a bit in the acknowledgements (which I also cried at, because I don't want this to be the end) where he says "the cool thing about trilogies is you get to use every last part of the buffalo". By fuck did he use every last part--everything goes down in this finale. All the town lore combines and Proofrock undergoes it's one last hectic and gory night of chaos and blood-shed.

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poetsofsweetpea's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It is always a shock to me when a horror novel wrecks me. It's not that it is hard to bring me to tears, coffee commercials at Christmas time can do it. It's just, when a novel spends a good amount of time ripping the guts from its characters, I figure mine are safe. The Angel of Indian Lake though, gutted me. It's not just that I love Jade. She's one of the few characters in fiction that I genuinely adore, that I want to reach into the pages of the book and shake because she can't see how special she is. It's also because her growth is so completely perfect. While the other novels in the series felt like love letters to the genre of slashers, this third and final installment felt, to me, like an homage to the American experience. In that it highlighted our obsession with pop culture until it mirrors our everyday lives. The seeds may come from foreign places, but the fruit is all ours, the soil, the climate, and the future of the plant are in the hands of the depraved and brave. There are so many things I want to say about this novel. I want to write about why this book made me cry, but I hate spoilers in reviews. I'm also never sure if it is just me or if every reader will love it as much as I do. There were fewer POV's in this one and I was grateful for that. The POV's that emerge also had voices that were different. I was never lost in who was telling me the story. I am glad most of it was from Jade. I listened to the audio book and having Steven King be the voice of the teacher was so perfect. I almost don't want to tell anyone, just so it can hit them the way it hit me. In a lot of ways The Angel of Indian Lake felt like three books, like there were three final scenes. The book was full of blood. It was leaking out on every page, but it also had heart.

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edoherty's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I love that I was able to access an advance copy of this book, because waiting for it has been painful. On the other hand, I now have no one to scream with about it because it’s not coming out for three more months.

It’s worth screaming about. It’s even more painful to read than the first book in the trilogy, which is saying something, and it’s brutal in many many MANY ways, but it’s unexpectedly beautiful even in its pain. It's not quite a perfect book - I have some questions about a few scenes and there were points when I was having trouble following the action - but I don’t particularly care.

I love these characters more than I thought I could. Jade is the most Final of Girls, and I love that Letha can see that even when Jade can’t. My heart breaks for them and much as I want to spend more time with them, I also hope that the presumed lack of any more stories about them means that they will finally have the time and space to heal that they so desperately need.

I loved this book.

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