Reviews with content warning for Mass/school shootings - Clown in a Cornfield

This was a really good story. Adam Cesar definitely keeps you on your toes and gives an amazing anxiety ridden tale of small town folks going crazy. Ultimately I feel like this would be a plan that MAGA would try to pull. Scary to think about. Its genocide but kept local? Lol I love that the ending sets it up for a sequel in true movie ending form!! A perfect nod to the classic slasher films. The audio performance was great as well! Definitely going to be checking out 2 & 3!!!

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dblue236's review

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dark funny mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

The title and cover tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this book. It's part teen slasher, part satire, all gore, and I honestly kind of loved it despite itself. It reminded me of the movies I loved as a teen, and the "reveal" toward the end that made it feel more like satire added to the fun, rather than detracting from it. This definitely didn't move any mountains, but that wasn't the intent and sometimes that's okay.

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belalugosissdad's review

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challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

3.75

It was a good story and I would have went crazy for this book in high school which is the intended audience being a Y/A novel. Pretty graphic and uncomfortable but if you really get down to brass tacs it’s not that far off of the reality of a lot of American school trauma…just with killer clowns and a looming generational difference. Good read! Will probably listen to the second book on audio.

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kromez7's review

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dark lighthearted mysterious tense 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? Yes

3.75

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twistykris's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

2.75

This book was a major disappointment for me. I was really hoping for a great, suspenseful read just in time for Halloween and while it was sort of a fun and quick slasher, that was about it. The characters were so underdeveloped that they blended together and I honestly didn't care for anyone, even the "good" guys. Another review said the adults were "borderline cartoonish" and I completely agree. Most of the kids were insufferable. The killer reveal was predictable and reasoning behind the major plot was... absurd.

1. The adults in the town hated a certain group of kids SO much that they decided to go on a killing spree (of which innocent kids were victims to) to "save" the town??? And then they tried to pin it on a kid whose sister died in a tragic accident a year ago (and whose dad hates him for it) and the girl who moved to this town 4 DAYS AGO? Make it make sense.
2. The adults calling new-girl Quinn a "whore" and a "slut" when she's literally done nothing was maddening.
3. I also feel like the timeline is so off. The Founder's Day incident happens and the adults who were in this "Make Kettle Springs Great Again" group now decide "let's go slaughter a bunch of kids." It just feels like everything happens SO fast that it doesn't make sense.
4. Ronnie and Matt are just... in on murdering their friends? Because they want to be on the "right side of history"?? Makes 0 sense to me.
5. Cole and Rust's relationship felt oddly thrown in. Sure, they were childhood friends, but they don't get that much interaction with each other in the book. Quinn's POV suggested maybe everyone had a crush on Cole (as in Janet, Ronnie, and Matt), but even from Cole's POV there didn't seem to be any sort of romantic feelings towards Rust. A desire to reconnect, sure, but they were literally hanging out for the first time in years at the party. This doesn't feel like queer rep.
6. And the ending with Cole's dad going to Cuba to "do the job right" was so confusing? How is him going to Cuba relate to killing his son? I think this was supposed to be a cliffhanger to lead into the sequel, but I was just left dumbfounded and confused.

And one of my biggest issues was the audiobook. I liked Jesse Vilinsky's narration in Seanan McGuire's Lost in the Moment and Found. But in this, the accents and the voice she gave for men and teenage boys was just distracting and at times the narration was so overly dramatic to the point it was hard to understand what she was saying.

I will not be reading the sequel, even after that (bizarre) cliffhanger epilogue.

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zuzareads's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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loosejelly's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

3.25

It was a slasher movie put to page! I felt like I was watching a movie in the best way. It was campy and tense and I loved the surprise queer rep!

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