Reviews

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

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pressedlupine's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

This book made me care about basketball. But only when women play it. Or elk

Content Warnings

edgarallanfoe's review against another edition

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4.0

There's a lot to chew on here. It addresses the struggles of balancing modern American life with native tradition, all of the social stigma and stereotypes that Native Americans have to face, poverty and imbalance derived from reservation living, and so on. The nature themes are well used and cycles of violence shown with the vengeful spirit are great parallels to the cyclical violence experienced by NAs as well. There's a dark comedic voice shown in the narration and in the characters themselves, which adds a lot to their depth and likability. The horror scenes work remarkably well for the most part too. There were multiple sections I had to reread to really let them sink in.

The writing, some of the pacing, and how the spirit was described at times was what knocked it down a few notches for me. When it's got momentum, it's fantastic, but when it doesn't, I struggled. The way dialogue was framed didn't quite catch for me and there were bouts of exposition that I didn't entirely engage with. Plus, the elk-head woman imagery didn't so much horrify me as make me do a double take - I had a hard time being frightened by that. All of this is subject to change on my next reading.

I very much recommend this book for all its great qualities. Other people are definitely likely to get even more out of it, and I look forward to reading it again.

jonsciandra's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

I am mad about how good this book is.

bhofmeier's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

Damn, that was intense

fallona's review against another edition

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4.0

It's very effective horror, and it's evocatively written. It does what it sets out to do, very well. It is also viscerally brutal at times, to the point that I had to take a break from it several times.