A review by thebakersbooks
The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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

4.0

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It really delivered on the horror vibes, I enjoyed the main character's development, and the story was a cool take on the "I see dead people" trope. However, the antagonist being a (dead) school shooter who was mentally ill sat wrong with me. Plenty of mentally ill people have terrible lives and go through things like the antagonist did without picking up a gun and turning it on others. Further, whenever there's a real-life mass shooting, individuals and media are quick to point to mental illness as the cause, which is harmful to mentally ill people as a whole and elides the fact that most mass shootings are motivated by political extremism. I think it would've been possible to write this book without adding to the stigma and stereotypes around mental illness and I would've found it a much more enjoyable read. 

However, I'm not sure if I'm overreacting as a person with a "scary" mental illness myself, so I'll give this the benefit of the doubt. It would be a shame to discard a horror novel with a gay Black protagonist, especially when there were so many great things about the book! One of its best features, in my opinion, is the cinematic storytelling—part of what makes this book work so well is that it's very action-packed and visual, to the point where you can see how it would play out as a movie. And as much as I liked Jake as a main character, the story really bloomed for me around the halfway point, which is when he makes friends who listen to and support him. I also appreciated how the main character's family is shown to be deeply flawed yet ultimately loving; complex family dynamics can be difficult to write well, but the author pulled it off admirably here. 

I do recommend this book, with the caveat that it's very necessary to check out a list of content warnings first, even if you're not usually someone who seeks out content warnings. My list below is as complete as I could make it, but it's worth cross-referencing with another one if you can find it. Unfortunately, the author doesn't have one up on his website, but it's likely another reviewer has a similar list. The school shooting aspect in particular could be triggering to this book's target audience of young adults; it wasn't great for me, and I was out of school well before such shootings became a common occurrence.

content warnings: school shooting, gun violence, child sexual assault, physical and emotional abuse of a child by parents, racism and racial slurs, homophobia and homophobic slurs, mention of suicide attempt and institutionalization, intense bullying, spiders and cockroaches
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