Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones

7 reviews

elysianbud's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I miss Jade Daniels already. 

Stephen Graham Jones gutted me like a fish. Feel like Casey Becker hanging from a tree with my innards falling out.

There's a bit in the acknowledgements (which I also cried at, because I don't want this to be the end) where he says "the cool thing about trilogies is you get to use every last part of the buffalo". By fuck did he use every last part--everything goes down in this finale. All the town lore combines and Proofrock undergoes it's one last hectic and gory night of chaos and blood-shed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Death, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Death of parent, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit

hydecircus's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm going to miss Jade forever she truely is one of the best protagonists in the world to me. I know "we can't pick our genre" but I am sad she and Letha didn't get together, but at least we got confirmation that Jade is into women and honestly who knows what the future holds for them... But God. What a final installment. I love how well this book balances so many different types of killers at once and yet ties it all together in the end... Oh Jade... I'll miss you forever.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Death of parent, Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Suicide attempt, Violence, Drug abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Classism, Alcohol, Colonisation, Grief, Incest, and Car accident

poetsofsweetpea's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It is always a shock to me when a horror novel wrecks me.  It's not that it is hard to bring me to tears, coffee commercials at Christmas time can do it.  It's just, when a novel spends a good amount of time ripping the guts from its characters, I figure mine are safe.  The Angel of Indian Lake though, gutted me.  It's not just that I love Jade. She's one of the few characters in fiction that I genuinely adore, that I want to reach into the pages of the book and shake because she can't see how special she is. It's also because her growth is so completely perfect.   While the other novels in the series felt like love letters to the genre of slashers, this third and final installment felt, to me, like an homage to the American experience.  In that it highlighted our obsession with pop culture until it mirrors our everyday lives.  The seeds may come from foreign places, but the fruit is all ours, the soil, the climate, and the future of the plant are in the hands of the depraved and brave.  There are so many things I want to say about this novel. I want to write about why this book made me cry, but I hate spoilers in reviews.  I'm also never sure if it is just me or if every reader will love it as much as I do.  There were fewer POV's in this one and I was grateful for that.  The POV's that emerge also had voices that were different. I was never lost in who was telling me the story.  I am glad most of it was from Jade. I listened to the audio book and having Steven King be the voice of the teacher was so perfect.  I almost don't want to tell anyone, just so it can hit them the way it hit me.   In a lot of ways The Angel of Indian Lake felt like three books, like there were three final scenes.  The book was full of blood.  It was leaking out on every page, but it also had heart. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Suicide, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Animal death, Pedophilia, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Child death, Police brutality, Stalking, and Torture

henrygravesprince's review

dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Oh, Jenny, Jennifer, J.D., Jade.

I’m seriously starting to question if it’s possible for SGJ to bite off more than he can chew, because you would think with all of the things he’s attempting to do in this book, that if he could, it would be now. But instead, this book succeeds in being jam-packed to the gills with ideas, visceral gore, gut-wrenching tragedy and the brutal beauty of horror, and tying up each of the loose ends from the previous installments, weaving all of the thematic threads into one, without being off any worse for it. It falls in the middle of the pacing of the first and second books, full of action from the get-go without feeling rushed or bogged down. While the second book was about cycles, this book is about putting an end to them. It brings a parallel between the ways Jade’s parents failed her

—her father’s abuse, her mother’s inaction—

and shows us the snap in that cycle of harm,

shows us instead a dutiful, loving father and a mother who will go to the ends of earth to do right by her daughter in Letha and Banner

. This book was dedicated to Jason Voorhees, and I think I can see why: the love and fury of Pamela Voorhees sings through this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, and Gore

Minor: Ableism, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, and Forced institutionalization

readingwithkaitlyn's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Body horror, Gun violence, Murder, Death, Child death, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Racism, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, Classism, Torture, and Animal death

Minor: Alcoholism, Rape, Genocide, Sexual content, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pedophilia, Car accident, Excrement, Alcohol, Confinement, Sexual assault, Vomit, Forced institutionalization, Pregnancy, Suicide, Abandonment, and Ableism

grimdark_dad's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gore, Death of parent, Kidnapping, Blood, Sexual assault, Grief, Violence, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Death, Gun violence, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, and Vomit

danaslitlist's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

 First I want to say a HUGE thank you to the publisher for reaching out to me and offering an E-ARC of The Angel of Indian Lake, I truly appreciate the gift of getting to read one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 early!

I wasn't sure how well this book would do in wrapping up the series and tying all the pieces together. Many a fan of books has experienced the pain of the final installment not living up to what was promised. However, I was beyond pleased and satisfied with this book....even if the bears were a surprise. This has to be the most off the rails book in the trilogy and I honestly believe that it took Stephen Graham Jones' talents to pull it off. In someone else hands, I don't see it falling into place correctly as it did in Mr. Jones.

The core of this story is facing demons and the successes and failures of ones past. And the way that everything is brought back to the beginning, the way the parallels are set up was beyond satisfying.
The Angel of Indian Lake kicks off with one of the most intriguing opening lines I've experienced and doesn't slow down from there at all. Reuniting with Jade, and by extension Stephen Graham Jones, is like being reunited with your best friend who is equally obsessed with slasher films as you are. The entire first chapter is a solid reintroduction to Proofrock and the absolute horrors that living there entails. I didn't think it was possible to really be able to love Jade more than I did from book one but there is something beautiful and transformative about Jade in this final installment.

Seeing how much Jade has changed and how much she hasn't is so reminiscent of Sidney Prescott. Jade has changed for the better. She isn't who she was in book one or book two. And yet, her core, her heart is forever Jade Daniels: slasher girl.

To see her trying so hard to NOT be the girl who cried slasher, to see her change who she is in order to survive, all the while her being completely oblivious to the fact that those choices and those changes ARE how a final girl behaves. That's how a final girl survives.

Jade has always been the final girl in defiance of the trope: not just because she defies the stereotypes (she's not the virgin, she's not the good girl, she's not the white girl) but because the way she survives is by defiance. We have to look at this trilogy how we would look at a slasher movie franchise. The events of the first two acts (books one and two) have now shaped our hero into the final girl. She has emerged.

Just like the rest of the series, The Angel of Indian Lake is a love letter to horror movies. This book is meant for the movie buffs who find themselves inexplicably drawn to slashers, drawn to their stories, and those who feel an understanding for the Jasons and the Carries, just as Jade does. 

I truly believe that Jade Daniels will stick with me for the rest of my life and I will be returning to her over and over again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Murder, and Gore

Moderate: Gore, Body horror, Medical trauma, Grief, Emotional abuse, Blood, Abandonment, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Child death