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A review by thekingcrusoe
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
4.0
So there is part of me that wants to rate this 3 stars instead, much like the way I did Night of the Mannequins despite enjoying that book a decent bit (in retrospect I might actually raise that one up higher), but I think I will stick with the 4 stars at least for now, though I may change that in the future.
The Only Good Indians is a book that gets a lot of hate for various reasons...some of those reasons I admit are valid, but begrudging the book so damn bad for those things still doesn't make that much sense to me. Sure, there's stuff to not like here...but I personally didn't hate it. I didn't hate anything here.
The biggest sin SGJ committed with this novel was that he made some very STRANGE decisions, primarily with the antagonist and the climax, but that was about all I could REALLY gripe about that isn't consistent with his other books - such as prose/writing style being somewhat below what I would want.
Starting with Part One, I immediately was enjoying what I was reading. The sort of "Prologue" of the book was hooking and interesting and cool, and then moved into the Part One that in some ways made it clear what the Prologue depicted but also centered around some other characters and briefly introducing others that would appear in Part Two that I cared about so much more than I did any other characters in SGJ's other novels I've read up to now. There was some depth, there were some good interactions, and little quirks and things given to the characters that made them feel like people. This meant that regardless of what was happening, I was enjoying what I read.
The last couple chapters of Part One admittedly go a bit off the rails, but it really italicizes basically the whole concept of the book in the first place, so if you happen to not be a fan of that aspect...that could make the book bad to you. I wasn't completely sold by it - in some ways I'm still not - as it seems the sort of folkloric inspiration for the antagonist of TOGI isn't truly derived from any specific folkloric tale, and this I think hurts it. There's no history of the antagonist to dig in to, nor any "familiarity" to it, like say a genuine tale about a wendigo would have (to my analysis, the wendigo might be the closest thing to what this creature was based on, but only the less accurate versions of the wendigo, so I don't know, the whole thing's weird.)
Anyway, Part Two shifts into some new characters and an additional writing technique that it seems some people also have a hard time with - portions of second person. For what it's worth, I think TOGI's use of second person is actually pretty good. It doesn't feel totally out of place, and at least SOMEWHAT accentuates the purpose of the character whom the 2nd person is used for. I didn't quite care about the characters of Part Two the way that I did for Part One, largely because I hadn't anticipated the climactic moment of Part One (and its aftermath) that necessitates the switch of cast. But even so, I came to care for the characters the way that I did for the part one characters anyway. The relationships and everything mattered to me still.
Part Two culminates into it's own huge climactic moment - the last chapter of this second part is BRUTAL, and got tons of reactions out of me. It was genuinely really cool. In some sense, the book could have ended here and it would've been fine - good even; it wouldn't have been unsatisfactory at the very least. The way that Part two went made it a very tragic event that I...enjoyed(?) quite a bit. Totally cool stuff. Up to this point in the novel, it was an easy 4 star read, no higher no lower, and no questions about it.
The much shorter 3rd part is where my biggest complaint comes into play, and no it's not the dreaded basketball scene that everybody made into such a big deal. Sure, this being the true climax of the book was a very strange decision, and it was a bit over the top for sure (compared to all previous inclusions of basketball in the book, which I thought were really tasteful and fun/interesting), but it wasn't so bad as people make it out to be. The main problem I had with Part Three is I just didn't really care as much. I cared about the one character, but the more absurd aspects of the folkloric basis for the story really just kind of let me down a bit here. I don't know why, but they just didn't fully live up to their potential.
With that being said though, the resolution is REALLY good. The very last chapter or two of the book is great, because everything about the plot between a couple flashback moments, references to those events, current-day events, etc. came full circle in a way that I have rarely scene from any other novel I've read. A few series have done this kind of thing for me, but independent novels don't really do this too much, and especially not to this degree.
The climax of the book in the third part were pretty meh for me, but at least the resolution was good, and I did really like the first two parts a decent bit.
Some of my friends anticipated that - after my somewhat positive, albeit mixed, feelings on Night of the Mannequins and my DNF of Flushboy - that this would be my favorite of the 3 SGJ I had planned out for this month, and this holds up. I think I'm remembering NotM more fondly than I rated it at first, but I do think that this one is my favorite.
Though I am reading one last SGJ novel the size of NotM basically as I'm writing this review - that addition being Mapping the Interior - and some people think that one will either be my favorite or least favorite of the 3 SGJ books I finish this month.
Either way, I think that The Only Good Indians is both ironically and unironically good, though it does have some exceedingly strange decisions and takes a couple missteps in my opinion, keeping it from its fullest potential. The *core* of the novel wasn't my favorite, but everything around it I really really enjoyed.
People like to shit on TOGI for their own reasons...but it's honestly pretty good. Just maybe don't read this if you really dislike basketball XD
The Only Good Indians is a book that gets a lot of hate for various reasons...some of those reasons I admit are valid, but begrudging the book so damn bad for those things still doesn't make that much sense to me. Sure, there's stuff to not like here...but I personally didn't hate it. I didn't hate anything here.
The biggest sin SGJ committed with this novel was that he made some very STRANGE decisions, primarily with the antagonist and the climax, but that was about all I could REALLY gripe about that isn't consistent with his other books - such as prose/writing style being somewhat below what I would want.
Starting with Part One, I immediately was enjoying what I was reading. The sort of "Prologue" of the book was hooking and interesting and cool, and then moved into the Part One that in some ways made it clear what the Prologue depicted but also centered around some other characters and briefly introducing others that would appear in Part Two that I cared about so much more than I did any other characters in SGJ's other novels I've read up to now. There was some depth, there were some good interactions, and little quirks and things given to the characters that made them feel like people. This meant that regardless of what was happening, I was enjoying what I read.
The last couple chapters of Part One admittedly go a bit off the rails, but it really italicizes basically the whole concept of the book in the first place, so if you happen to not be a fan of that aspect...that could make the book bad to you. I wasn't completely sold by it - in some ways I'm still not - as it seems the sort of folkloric inspiration for the antagonist of TOGI isn't truly derived from any specific folkloric tale, and this I think hurts it. There's no history of the antagonist to dig in to, nor any "familiarity" to it, like say a genuine tale about a wendigo would have (to my analysis, the wendigo might be the closest thing to what this creature was based on, but only the less accurate versions of the wendigo, so I don't know, the whole thing's weird.)
Anyway, Part Two shifts into some new characters and an additional writing technique that it seems some people also have a hard time with - portions of second person. For what it's worth, I think TOGI's use of second person is actually pretty good. It doesn't feel totally out of place, and at least SOMEWHAT accentuates the purpose of the character whom the 2nd person is used for. I didn't quite care about the characters of Part Two the way that I did for Part One, largely because I hadn't anticipated the climactic moment of Part One (and its aftermath) that necessitates the switch of cast. But even so, I came to care for the characters the way that I did for the part one characters anyway. The relationships and everything mattered to me still.
Part Two culminates into it's own huge climactic moment - the last chapter of this second part is BRUTAL, and got tons of reactions out of me. It was genuinely really cool. In some sense, the book could have ended here and it would've been fine - good even; it wouldn't have been unsatisfactory at the very least. The way that Part two went made it a very tragic event that I...enjoyed(?) quite a bit. Totally cool stuff. Up to this point in the novel, it was an easy 4 star read, no higher no lower, and no questions about it.
The much shorter 3rd part is where my biggest complaint comes into play, and no it's not the dreaded basketball scene that everybody made into such a big deal. Sure, this being the true climax of the book was a very strange decision, and it was a bit over the top for sure (compared to all previous inclusions of basketball in the book, which I thought were really tasteful and fun/interesting), but it wasn't so bad as people make it out to be. The main problem I had with Part Three is I just didn't really care as much. I cared about the one character, but the more absurd aspects of the folkloric basis for the story really just kind of let me down a bit here. I don't know why, but they just didn't fully live up to their potential.
With that being said though, the resolution is REALLY good. The very last chapter or two of the book is great, because everything about the plot between a couple flashback moments, references to those events, current-day events, etc. came full circle in a way that I have rarely scene from any other novel I've read. A few series have done this kind of thing for me, but independent novels don't really do this too much, and especially not to this degree.
The climax of the book in the third part were pretty meh for me, but at least the resolution was good, and I did really like the first two parts a decent bit.
Some of my friends anticipated that - after my somewhat positive, albeit mixed, feelings on Night of the Mannequins and my DNF of Flushboy - that this would be my favorite of the 3 SGJ I had planned out for this month, and this holds up. I think I'm remembering NotM more fondly than I rated it at first, but I do think that this one is my favorite.
Though I am reading one last SGJ novel the size of NotM basically as I'm writing this review - that addition being Mapping the Interior - and some people think that one will either be my favorite or least favorite of the 3 SGJ books I finish this month.
Either way, I think that The Only Good Indians is both ironically and unironically good, though it does have some exceedingly strange decisions and takes a couple missteps in my opinion, keeping it from its fullest potential. The *core* of the novel wasn't my favorite, but everything around it I really really enjoyed.
People like to shit on TOGI for their own reasons...but it's honestly pretty good. Just maybe don't read this if you really dislike basketball XD