A review by cheriepie
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo

fast-paced
  • Loveable characters? No

1.0

I've never read a book that is so disinterested in its own world and characters that I have to wonder why this author picked up a pen at all. The writing style is so sparse as to read like a police blotter. Things occur in an order and the author does not care to write them in any way that might, perhaps, draw some emotion out of the reader. This supposedly historical folk horror writes its 1920s rural Kentucky pastor as if he were a post-Reagan megachurch pastor from Texas. All the townspeople (save Stevie, the Victim Who Needs to be Saved) are cardboard cutouts that we can watch Leslie dunk on.

Our main character is a sanctimonious little twerp who exists only to help those "backwards hicks in Appalachia" and bring its queer people back to the "progressive north." I'm actually shocked that the author purports being from Kentucky; by the way he writes about southerners as either all evil conservatives or poor doe-eyed victims who need to "just leave," I'd have assumed he was from upstate New York. 

Also, this book hates women. Every woman that this character meets is either a. a tradwife helpmeet who just falls in step with her husband or the pastor; b. a victim who needs saving; or c. eye candy for our leering weirdo MC.  

There's better folk horror books out there, there's better trans men MCs out there, and better queer literature out there. Don't pick up this one. 
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