Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Only Good Indians

In terms of craft, I think this book is really well done. I have two things that held me back from giving this 5 stars.
1. The pace felt a little off at times. I think it came from switching between "protagonists" but it took me out of the story a bit.
2. For a book that had sortve a revenge plot where a female character was exacting revenge on men who did something shitty, there certainly were a LOT of women who got killed (horribly) as collateral damage. I feel like that maybe fit the horror genre but it kept making me frustrated because I couldn't relate to the "antagonist" destroying all these women almost as pawns or punishment for the men.

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devinjai6655's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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heynonnynonnie's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

A decade after a hunting transgression, a supernatural entity haunts a group of Blackfeet men and starts taking them and their loved ones out one by one.

This was very meh for me. I love the concept. I mean, indigenous supernatural karmic war sounds metal as hell for a horror book, and the first chapter smashed my expectations. It's a perfect combination of concept, style, and pacing. But the next 100 or so pages moves at such a slow pace before giving the reader sporadic moments of action. The voice takes some effort to fully appreciate and can be cumbersome during the slower parts of the story. I didn't care for the basketball scenes and their inclusion left me confused. I'm holding out hope for this author's other works because there were several chapters that were 5 star standalones for me, and I'm so in love with the concepts from his books.

TW: Animal death (hunting and pets), animal cruelty, murder, gore, violence, racism

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chriswoody94's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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zozibelle's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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voxvenati's review against another edition

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mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This was a refreshing experience. It was tense, gruesome (at times), and full of heart.

Two things I was not really expecting going in, that there was quite a lot of: basketball and animal death - specifically

lots of dogs and elk

.

I was not a huge fan of the pacing. Front bit was good, middle dragged, end was good. Perhaps contributing to this, the early parts of the book set up like it was going to be something like four short stories tied together by this vengeful entity, but the second half of the book was not split up. It was all one story at that point.

Quite a lot of descriptions of gore, some really tense scenes, but just didn’t hit that scary vibe. Unfortunate it couldn’t hit all three points, but I did like SGJ’s style. It flowed quite naturally.

I liked the entity. I thought she was neat. I wish I had been more on her side, but I just liked some of the characters too much to agree with her.

Really solid read despite me not knowing or caring about basketball. Not scary, but a little graphic, so maybe check trigger warnings if you use them.

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karthnemesis's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

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spinebreakr's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I was enthralled with this right up until

elk head woman transformed into a human.

which unfortunately is pretty early on in the book.
The writing was tense and emotional. You could really feel the weight of generational trauma resting on the shoulders of the main characters. The way it informs all their actions is raw and drawn from a very real place. The character work is super well done. But ultimately, the monster in the story is not nearly so scary as what the men do to the ones they love.

Once we started getting chapters from the perspective of the monster, I had such a hard time being scared of her. I came to this book expecting horror and I just wasn't gripped at any point. The gore was pretty visceral at times. Very graphic, and overdone in some spots. For example

Scalping Shaney with a motorcycle??

Yeah it was horrific, but also so wildly over the top, it immediately pulled me out of the story.

Overall, I feel like it started off strong but lost direction a little as it went.
I still recommend. But only If when you read this book you treat it like a Halloween-esque slasher film. Do that and you'll have a great time.

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