Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Only Good Indians

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

16 reviews

stephanieluxton's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

A lot of dogs die or are injured in this book. They don't all die at the same time to it's not like ripping off a bandaid. It's actually pretty upsetting.

Without giving too much away, this book is about a few native american friends who broke a rule while hunting 10 years ago and now an entity/elk/person/vengeful spirit is hunting them down for revenge. This book follows each of the four friends as they encounter the vengeful spirit.

Something this book did well was giving a unique perspective into the characters lives. It haven't read many books about modern day native americans/indians but I felt the characters were written well. Nothing felt super political.

The story starts off with mysterious things happening to Lewis and it's a lot of fun watching his paranoia grow. Then the story gets dark and something crazy happens.

Basically all the main characters are killed violently. I actually enjoyed how shocking this part was.

T

The second half of the story introduces Lewis's old friends in more detail. Some of the pacing gets weird here. This is when I stopped having fun reading. Theres a lot or time spent talking about basketball even though it's not very relevant. When we start to see the spirit, what I was imagining in my head while reading was so goofy that I couldn't feel scared or appreciate any tense moments.

The spirit is described as a woman with an elks head and I kept picturing a woman wearing one of those goofy plastic horse masks chasing the characters.

My biggest problem with this book that is

that I didn't feel like there was any justice. None of these characters deserved to die.

Now to spoil the general story so that I can elaborate on my previous sentence:

Four indian friends go into the woods 10 years ago to hunt elk but all the elk are in an area of the woods that is restricted to them. It's near the end of the season so they decide t go and find a large herd. They kill multiple elk and Lewis kills one that has eyes that almost look human to him. She fights to live but he kills her and finds out the elk was pregnant. He vows to use evey part of the elk as a sign of respect and remorse. They are discovered and kicked out of the woods, forbidden from hunting ever again by the elders on the reservation. 10 years later the spirit of the elk (disguised as a human or elk/human hybrid depending on the day, begins hunting them and killing them one by one. She doesn't just kill Lewis, who was her killer. She (directly or indirectly) kills Lewis, his dog, wife, and his friend from work. They she kills the other men who were on the hunting trip as well as their dogs and basically anyone else they care about or who just happen to be in the area at the time. None of these people were evil. Most of them were just living their lives the best they knew how to. It's not a satisfying tale of revenge.

In the end, I have no idea what exactly this book was trying to say. I also have no idea why it's named what it is.

Content Warnings

flygon's review against another edition

Go to review page

Hated the writing style - constant run-on sentences that dragged on and just made everything too confusing

Content Warnings

twobooksonenerd's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

5.0

Had a hard time letting Peta go. I believe she was the elk.

Content Warnings

sonygaystation's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

Wow this was unbelievably boring sprinkled wifh approximately two (2) interesting scenes and way too graphic animals deaths!

Content Warnings

blacksphinx's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious 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

5.0

This book is not normally my speed. If you love slasher movies and have a high tolerance for gore and violence towards humans and pets alike, pick this book up.

I somehow managed to hold on through things that normally would have made me put the book down forever and it was so good. One of the most PERFECT uses of second-person I've encountered in a novel; a genius way to incorporate the slasher movie PoV-of-the-killer shots directly into the narrative. I knew it was going to be 5 stars at the ~70% mark when

the goddamn slasher challenges the basketball-loving final girl to a game of basketball because she wants to wreak her in a game of her favorite sport before killing her OMG.

If you can get through the things that start occurring around the 1/3rd point and aren't squeamish about animals dying, you should finish the book - it's totally worth it.

Content Warnings

tifftastic87's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I struggled in the beginning with this book, the writing style was different than everything I've ever read. At first it felt like the narrator wasnt sure what they were trying to say, and that was off putting but then I realized it was purposeful. Everyone in this story, except for Denorah, is an unreliable narrator. Every part not from her perspective is written in that way. Her parts are smooth and easy. Everyone else's a little choppy, a little distracted, a little unsure. Once I got the hang of it, it was better.

Each character's voice was unique. The story was nothing that I've ever read and it was dark as anything. I was not prepared for so much death. I'm going with a 4 only because the writing style was so hard. I found skipping to the second person for stuff in the second act (don't wanna spoil) to be really rough and kind of jarring.

I do really like how important Denorah, the fourteen-year-old daughter of one of the originally introduced characters became. I liked following the plot through characters so that it felt character driven but still moved by the plot.

I'll definitely be reading this author again.

Content Warnings