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noodlemanning 's review for:
Killer on the Road/The Babysitter Lives
by Stephen Graham Jones
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ok so I’ve actually only read The Babsysitter Lives so far, but its so great I have to say something.
This is SGJ maybe at his best— the plot is wild and twisting and interesting… Stranger Things meets a slasher flick. But he’s also taking down white supremacy and colonialism. And unraveling internalized racism. And scaring the shit out of me. And making me cry. And making me remember. And conjuring nostalgia for a time we’ve all almost, but not quite, known. As he notes, in the Acknowledgments, “The way we can ever only know the emotional contours of a single place, finally? I think we might only ever really know the doors and hallways and rickety staircases of a single house, too. That house, for me, is on County Road 1120 in Greenwood, Texas. Just to remember where I’m from, and where I don’t want to have to be again, because I can’t handle the dreams. They would break me, I think.”
This is SGJ maybe at his best— the plot is wild and twisting and interesting… Stranger Things meets a slasher flick. But he’s also taking down white supremacy and colonialism. And unraveling internalized racism. And scaring the shit out of me. And making me cry. And making me remember. And conjuring nostalgia for a time we’ve all almost, but not quite, known. As he notes, in the Acknowledgments, “The way we can ever only know the emotional contours of a single place, finally? I think we might only ever really know the doors and hallways and rickety staircases of a single house, too. That house, for me, is on County Road 1120 in Greenwood, Texas. Just to remember where I’m from, and where I don’t want to have to be again, because I can’t handle the dreams. They would break me, I think.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide
Moderate: Sexual harassment