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4.15 AVERAGE
4.15 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
dark
tense
medium-paced
dark
emotional
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:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Plot was all over the place. Too many POVS. I don’t even know what’s happening or what happened in the first book.
“You really named her ‘Linnea’?”
“Linnea’s a survivor.”
“She dies in every movie.”
“Her characters do, but she goes from movie to movie,” Letha says. “She never dies."
So this was a really good book! But it had extremely large shoes to fill. My expectations weren't that high for it, but only because I purposefully set them low knowing that living up to the genius that was My Heart is a Chainsaw was just going to be a really tall order.
I feel like I need to re-read both this one and the first one pretty soon and take it slowly, and tab and annotate, because I got in my own way here. Still, it's always tough to follow up a heart-favorite book with one that is very different, even though I wasn't expecting and didn't want a replay of the first book! (I am very curious to see how he will end the series.)
So it's been five years since the events of the first book, and Jade has just been released from prison, and she's now going by her birthname, Jennifer. Her return to her hometown coincides with the escape of a notorious serial killer named Dark Mill South (such a cool name for a serial killer, and the author's note amusingly tells you how he came up with it) and also a series of killings of high school kids that may or may not be related to either the Lake Witch massacre or the escaped serial killer. For those who were disappointed in the lack of slasher-content in the first book, they will not be disappointed here. There is a high, high body count, and that holds for the entire book.
I find the decision for SGJ to back off Jade as the narrator extremely interesting. She was the only POV in the first book, and we got so deep into her psyche you ended up either hating it or like, pair-bonding with Jade, as I did. Here, she has POV, but it's like, 20% of the book, max. The POVs are spread out across the entire town, including Letha, and many of the people who end up dying. As in the first book, there are interludes that break up the narrative. In the first book, it was Jade's Slasher 101 papers for Mr. Holmes, and here it's a nerdy high school student's musings on the Lake Witch massacre (which has another name in the book, but I can't remember what it is right now) and the culture and history of the town in relation to the massacre, for the current history teacher, who is also a character in the story. (The high school student, whose name I am also forgetting, is voiced delightfully by Jane Levy.)
I have a weak heart for slashers. I get too attached and upset when people start dying, but I could handle this book because of who dies and who doesn't. That's as far into spoilers as I'm willing to go.
Worth noting, I did the audiobook, which is full cast and a very good production, but the audiobook of the first book is one of my all-time favorites; Jade is voiced in that one to perfection by Cara Gee, who does not appear at all in this audiobook. I was basically devastated when I realized, and I know my disappointment that she wasn't there (and my meh feeling about her replacement) also definitely affected my enjoyment of this book. (The rest of the full cast does a stellar job.)
[4.5 stars]