Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Jackal

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Jackal by Erin E. Adams

87 reviews

clarklyn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

3.0

I have lots of complicated feelings about this book. I really enjoyed the first part of the book but then it fell off the rails for me and I got lost. I don’t think it knew what it wanted to be…thriller, true crime, mystery, horror?

It seemed like it was thriller/true crime but then I got ambushed by supernatural horror at the end. I wanted to like it, I appreciated the authors perspective and introspection on being a Black woman. However, to be honest, Liz wasn’t a super likable main character, although I was rooting for her and got incredibly frustrated with every obstacle she faced. The “best friend” was SO cruel to the main character but then they pick back up like it was nothing? Mel left Liz in the woods, the woods Mel KNOWS Liz is terrified of, after throwing her phone into the brush…what an absolute fucking asshole!!?

Sometimes the internal narrative was overly lyrical and flowery. It felt very forced and inauthentic and just isn’t my type of writing I don’t think. We spend more time in the main characters head than we do in the story.

Another aspect to this review is that I listened to the audiobook which I would not recommend for this book. I think my experience would have been much different if I had read it and maybe I will give it a second chance one day. The narrator struggled when reading the dialog. The sentences ran together and it was incredibly difficult to tell who was saying what at times. Her voice, while pretty and soothing, was very hard to follow and listen to in regard to the story. She was very soft spoken and mumbled her words sometimes and I just couldn’t follow at certain points.

I almost DNF’d at one point because I was so confused and frustrated. I powered through and while I didn’t *not* enjoy the book, it just wasn’t my favorite and I was left more confused than anything.

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roxanne_blythe's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

I love this book for all of the commentary that it makes about race, gender, and relationships.

This book is about a bunch of black girls that go missing in the woods. And it’s very interesting that this town. nobody talks about the fact that so many black girls have gone missing in the woods. It gets swept under the rug.

And as Liz is trying to uncover the lore of the town, it becomes supernatural???

Like I knew that there was someone doing this, but also a hinted at a supernatural being in Liz’s dreams.

I still don’t understand the symbolism of a shadow being taking the souls of black women. Like the way, I understood it was that these girls black girls in general or creators of the culture. That wouldn’t be an American culture without the contributions of black women. And how people just take and take and take and from black women until there’s nothing left.

That’s the way I interpreted it, I don’t really understand why she picked a jackal of all creatures. Also, Anubis? Don’t know where that’s coming from. Like one of the girls and her mom had a fascination with ancient Egyptian history, so maybe that’s where it came from??

Honestly, everybody in this town is a suspect all white people were suspicious to me. I did think Nick and his father had to do with it. And then I realize Doug had something to do with it when it was revealed by Kerstyn, his wife that his father lost a job at a steel mill, and I was had a book started.

Chris also a suspicious to me but he turned out to be innocent. Actually I take that back. Nobody in this town is inside the fact that everybody was complacent in the kidnapping and murder of these girls. Pisses me off and it’s actually really upsetting because this happened in real life.

I think we’re the book kind of lost me was once Lucy was revealed so this shadow being existed since the 1920s, but they didn’t actually start taking girls until 1985. What didn’t really make sense to me was if Lucy was a black girl or not because her narrative was giving very much white girl… or I could just be Jack but I’m reading as a white woman.

I can’t really give this book a rating just yet but I did really enjoy it. I think I kind of lost the plot. When’s Lucy was revealed, and we found Caroline.

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clarkg's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

Overall, I found this book to be a pretty compelling thriller with a decent twist ending. It's explorations or race, class, gender, and the geography and topography of the land were unlike anything I have read before and I valued Erin Adams' unique creative vision. That said, some moments felt heavy-handed and trope-y, which took me out of it a bit. Even with that caveat, I would still recommend it.

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ccard0223's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I loved this book so much. Until the last 25%....

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karenreadsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

4.5

This book is a thriller, a mystery, and a horror story. It's important to realize that before going into the book so you'll know what to expect. I found the story compelling and a quick read because I didn't want to put it down.

A small town. Racism. A history of "the flood" but no one really seems to know the full story of what happened there (or at least it's not a story that gets told). Girls going missing, those found have been brutally killed. Black girls. So the stories are swept away as accidents or animal attacks. But there's also something supernatural happening with the disappearances.

The ending comes together rather quicky so it would be easy to miss details of the final review. I listened to this on audiobook and rewound the final part to hear it again to be sure I caught everything.

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calamitydane's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

I was in love from the jump. This is a wonderful mystery and an honest depiction of a black girl growing up in a mostly white southern town. I spent the whole time trying to guess who could have done it. There were so many potentials with good evidence to support them. I was texting my partner with guesses and reasons every five minutes

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shannonbauchat's review against another edition

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4.5

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theboricuabookworm's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A gripping and intense (semi-paranormal) thriller that leaves me just a little wary of forests now. The book ends masterfully illustrating a point that Liz was trying to argue for the entire book: the world only cares and believes when the bad things happens to the white women even when the Black women have been the primary - and sometimes only - victims. Throughout the entire book, my suspects kept jumping and that is a credit to Adams ability to make us - and Liz - trust in different people every time. I'm not a thriller person much at all but Jackal is certainly one I will recommend.

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bennybooks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

What a fool I was for being a doughead, white men never do good

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sargasso_c's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This book is a marvel and should be taught in literature classes.

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