A review by chantaal
Jackal by Erin E. Adams

3.5

Being a black girl is inhabiting a cruel riddle: Your beauty is denied but replicated. Your sexuality is controlled but desired. You take up too much space, but if you are too small, you are ripped apart. Despite the wash of it, that's one thing you can always count on whiteness to do: destroy a threat.

As commentary on the lives and bodies of black women and girls, this book strikes home with surgical precision. As a mystery thriller with some supernatural horror underpinnings, it didn't quite hit the mark.

I never quite found myself liking Liz as a character, and as she became more and more like thriller main characters I really dislike reading about (has deep trauma that she always runs from, often self-medicates with alcohol or drugs, investigates in a way that has people disbelieving them or thinking they did it because of how much of a mess they are at life and/or investigating) I found it harder to enjoy the mystery aspect of the story itself.

This book was strongest in the chapters that followed the missing and murdered girls. Adams was at her best when writing these vignettes, focusing on flashes of their lives as both young girls and young black girls. 

For a debut, this felt messy in places but also incredibly strong. I'll absolutely be keeping an eye out for what she has coming up next.
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