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A review by degroovy
Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
My feelings on this book are complicated. I really enjoy that it handles LGBTQIA+characters and addresses gay awakenings which is always fun for those of us not on the straight and narrow so to speak. Horror has always been a home for people of alternate personalities to the status quo so it's nice to have the queer relationship of Dani and Willow be front and center. I thought they were pretty well handled and I cared about them. I thought the twist was going to be what Willow tweeted out to get canceled but the real twist to me was immediately afterward when we found out that it was Dani's fault. I actually gasped! I found Willow to be pretty relatable, especially as we get into her headspace about struggling to maintain a life that is perceived by others and a life that she truly wants to live, especially concerning her personality and sexuality.
The plot and setting are pretty fun, too. Very evocative of classic "ol'-reliable" horror conventions such as campgrounds in the woods and a mysterious killer offing the campers. But the construction of it all feels...lacking, empty. There are social media, newspaper, and blog interludes that spoon feed us background information that are actually pretty fun and inventive and the killer of Knock-Knock Nancy is equally fun, drawing a clear inspiration from the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow fame, right down to stuffing people's heads into a bag ala the 1999 film. But I found the characters outside Willow, Dani, Bebe, and maybe Kurt to be pretty two dimensional, especially Misty who serves as our normative antagonist but really only serves to piss off Willow and nothing else of much substance.
The dialogue these characters say is pretty fair...when it's not being contemporary. And Heads Will Roll is AGGRESSIVELY contemporary, constantly using films for metaphors such as The Shining, Bojack Horseman, Friday the 13th, The Parent Trap, and Alien. There were many more, I just stopped counting after the first few chapters. On one hand, it makes a measure of sense to have so many film references as the story is written in second person from Willow's POV and she grew up in the film industry so that's her lens of experience. On the other hand, it gets really tiring really fast and robs the story of description and emotion that might be preferable to sub in. Additionally, they speak in no way any young adult would speak, even for satirical tropes. They're constantly puking up things like "hashtag no filter", "group therapy noob", and other out of date internet language from the 2010s era. It looks and feels like it was written by someone in their early 30s who thinks they remember how social media starlets and internet dwellers talk and reminds me of that "how do you do fellow kids" Steve Buscemi scene from 30 Rock. That leads me to my next point.
Cancel culture is a big topic in this book and my feelings on it are mixed at best, not addressing the concept of cancel culture to begin with. It's the central driver for plot but only pops up when the plot needs it - when Willow reflects on her own cancellation or when another character haphazardly mentions the concept of cancel culture. It all comes out of nowhere every time and it's very grating when things get moving emotionally only to be stopped by the author soapboxing on cancel culture. I can tell the author is trying to make a positive point but it's so shallow that it honestly feels like lip service or even a derogatory parody, which I'm pretty sure isn't the intention. It's very ham fisted and distracting.
It's frustrating because there's really good, fun prose sprinkled throughout like "crack open her skull and paddle in her brain" yet it's contrasted against the most verbose dialogue. I feel like the pace was extremely janky too. It's only around 300 pages yet whenever I sat down to read it, it was an extremely sluggish experience and I felt like I was making absolutely no headway, even when I was 200 pages deep.
The twist with Kurt also fell flat for me, I thought it was extremely unnecessary and robs Willow of the final girl-esque catharsis that she kept going on about the entire novel, which is part of why the ending felt emotionally unresolved to me. It might have worked better thematically to have Willow kill the preacher to rest her trauma with religious zealotry, cancel culture, and seize her own agency and have the three primary LGBTQIA+ characters survive as a thematic juxtaposition regarding minorities that are often tormented and harassed in the religious or online spaces.
Again, I didn't hate this book, it was just fine and I found a lot to nitpick. It had some things going but it feels very undercooked to me. However, I should reiterate that the setting is really fun and so is the killer. The final revelation of the preacher at his home in the woods with the wicker statues is very creepy and very effective. The book also does a good job of luring you into a false sense of security so the bloodbath toward the end when all your favs start getting killed off en masse hits extra hard, it was a spectacularly fun moment to read.
So all in all, not horrible. Just a very mixed bag of half stale, half fresh campfire marshmallows.
The plot and setting are pretty fun, too. Very evocative of classic "ol'-reliable" horror conventions such as campgrounds in the woods and a mysterious killer offing the campers. But the construction of it all feels...lacking, empty. There are social media, newspaper, and blog interludes that spoon feed us background information that are actually pretty fun and inventive and the killer of Knock-Knock Nancy is equally fun, drawing a clear inspiration from the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow fame, right down to stuffing people's heads into a bag ala the 1999 film. But I found the characters outside Willow, Dani, Bebe, and maybe Kurt to be pretty two dimensional, especially Misty who serves as our normative antagonist but really only serves to piss off Willow and nothing else of much substance.
The dialogue these characters say is pretty fair...when it's not being contemporary. And Heads Will Roll is AGGRESSIVELY contemporary, constantly using films for metaphors such as The Shining, Bojack Horseman, Friday the 13th, The Parent Trap, and Alien. There were many more, I just stopped counting after the first few chapters. On one hand, it makes a measure of sense to have so many film references as the story is written in second person from Willow's POV and she grew up in the film industry so that's her lens of experience. On the other hand, it gets really tiring really fast and robs the story of description and emotion that might be preferable to sub in. Additionally, they speak in no way any young adult would speak, even for satirical tropes. They're constantly puking up things like "hashtag no filter", "group therapy noob", and other out of date internet language from the 2010s era. It looks and feels like it was written by someone in their early 30s who thinks they remember how social media starlets and internet dwellers talk and reminds me of that "how do you do fellow kids" Steve Buscemi scene from 30 Rock. That leads me to my next point.
Cancel culture is a big topic in this book and my feelings on it are mixed at best, not addressing the concept of cancel culture to begin with. It's the central driver for plot but only pops up when the plot needs it - when Willow reflects on her own cancellation or when another character haphazardly mentions the concept of cancel culture. It all comes out of nowhere every time and it's very grating when things get moving emotionally only to be stopped by the author soapboxing on cancel culture. I can tell the author is trying to make a positive point but it's so shallow that it honestly feels like lip service or even a derogatory parody, which I'm pretty sure isn't the intention. It's very ham fisted and distracting.
It's frustrating because there's really good, fun prose sprinkled throughout like "crack open her skull and paddle in her brain" yet it's contrasted against the most verbose dialogue. I feel like the pace was extremely janky too. It's only around 300 pages yet whenever I sat down to read it, it was an extremely sluggish experience and I felt like I was making absolutely no headway, even when I was 200 pages deep.
The twist with Kurt also fell flat for me, I thought it was extremely unnecessary and robs Willow of the final girl-esque catharsis that she kept going on about the entire novel, which is part of why the ending felt emotionally unresolved to me. It might have worked better thematically to have Willow kill the preacher to rest her trauma with religious zealotry, cancel culture, and seize her own agency and have the three primary LGBTQIA+ characters survive as a thematic juxtaposition regarding minorities that are often tormented and harassed in the religious or online spaces.
Again, I didn't hate this book, it was just fine and I found a lot to nitpick. It had some things going but it feels very undercooked to me. However, I should reiterate that the setting is really fun and so is the killer. The final revelation of the preacher at his home in the woods with the wicker statues is very creepy and very effective. The book also does a good job of luring you into a false sense of security so the bloodbath toward the end when all your favs start getting killed off en masse hits extra hard, it was a spectacularly fun moment to read.
So all in all, not horrible. Just a very mixed bag of half stale, half fresh campfire marshmallows.
Content Warnings
Minor: Homophobia, Suicide, Religious bigotry, and Murder