Reviews - I Was a Teenage Slasher

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3.14k reviews for:

I Was a Teenage Slasher

Stephen Graham Jones

3.76 AVERAGE

jlgrahamreads's review

2.75

dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This standalone novel runs over similar themes and ideas as Stephen Graham Jones’ other slasher commentary trilogy, Indian Lake. This novel is pretty straightforward with its main story, but is also interested in concepts of pattern recognition, free will, growing into what we’re told to be, and the different ways we can interpret our pasts. It is fun, but doesn’t play enough with genre conventions, and has a pretty rushed and unsatisfying ending.

cdyer1025's review

2.0

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

bookish_and_bratty's review

3.0

As far as a horror goes this book was more liked fiction spoof horror? Have you ever seen the original scream, like scream one back in the mid 90s? It was a parody of 80s campy horror slashers. How the slasher suddenly has a mask, can kill car engines, and is somehow never running but always manages to keep up with the screaming victim.
Tolly, our teenage slasher, and his best friend amber start to figure out that tolly has slasher movie magic just like those cheesy horror movies. Tolly is trying to actively fight it while simultaneously slaughtering his victims to re-enact his revenge.
This book is written from our slashers/Tollys point of view so half the time it’s from a outcasted, weird unreliable teenager and then the other part of the POV is Tolly as an unhinged slasher. The writing doesn’t always make sense and sometimes it’s hard to follow. As you keep reading you learn why the book format is the way it is. The killer is, unconventionally, “writing the book” to us; not the author per se; if you suspend reality for a sec.
This wasn’t bad but also not what I was expecting from this book! So a solid 3/5 for me. This could have been executed differently and written differently and I might have enjoyed it more, maybe? Idk but I still enjoyed this for what it was. I would say to definitely read this review so you know what your picking up and getting your self into.