Take a photo of a barcode or cover
arockinsamsara 's review for:
Mongrels
by Stephen Graham Jones
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Bloody and heartfelt, this story cuts deep. Everything about this story is great. It is a werewolf story, sure, but just barely. This is a story of a young boy living in an unconventional family living in the best ways they know how. This characters could all be dismissed as trash, and yet Graham Jones’s loving and tender depiction of this family forces the reader to contend with their own judgments in face of unblinking humanity. The characters, at least our core family, are detailed and feel completely actualized, tying with stereotypes only to fill them out in ways that refuses them anything less than genuine personhood. The world-building is tactile, yo-yoing across the southeast in a way that lets you smell the burning garbage in the fire barrels and feel the sticky heat radiating from the pavement. More importantly then the external setting is the internal setting, the world of this family, who they understand themselves to be, how they understand themselves to exist to each other and to the world. It is immersive and holds your whole heart. The care and dedication they have to each other is intense and carries the story. The writing itself is great, the prose itself being playful with a hint of vernacular to keep you immersed but also always keeping things moving. Yet it always feels like there is room to breathe, there is emotion and depth buried in the language. Part of that is the structure. While all of the chapters are from the same character’s perspective, the chapters alternate between the present storyline and that character’s re-telling of the life that he lived in the time jump of four years or so that happens at the end of the first chapter. This back and forth provides a wonderful type of reflexivity that lets the story curl in on itself, sleeping nose-to-tail. This isn’t your typical werewolf story, it is a family story and the whole “werewolf” part of it is entirely secondary… but there are still glimpses of violence, small action set-pieces buried throughout that keep the pacing fresh and exciting.
This story starts with a young boy looking at his aunt, who is raising with along with his uncle and grandpa, as his own mother died when birthing him, and insisting on seeing his mother in his aunt, keeping alive this woman who he never met yet who is his whole world. The deep, cutting emotion that pervades that small child’s frame gutted me right from the beginning, and Graham Jones keeps it going through the whole story. I finish the story with reflections on childhood and family, on growing up faster than you have to and creating your own sense of normalcy in a world that isn’t made for you. There is a constant struggle about fitting in, not just in society but in your own family, and what it means to have loyalty, to be dedicated to others no matter the circumstances, even when that dedication may be holding you back from realizing some other potential. This story felt like being ripped open and exposed, in some of the best ways.
This story starts with a young boy looking at his aunt, who is raising with along with his uncle and grandpa, as his own mother died when birthing him, and insisting on seeing his mother in his aunt, keeping alive this woman who he never met yet who is his whole world. The deep, cutting emotion that pervades that small child’s frame gutted me right from the beginning, and Graham Jones keeps it going through the whole story. I finish the story with reflections on childhood and family, on growing up faster than you have to and creating your own sense of normalcy in a world that isn’t made for you. There is a constant struggle about fitting in, not just in society but in your own family, and what it means to have loyalty, to be dedicated to others no matter the circumstances, even when that dedication may be holding you back from realizing some other potential. This story felt like being ripped open and exposed, in some of the best ways.