Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
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The Book: I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
The rating:
3.5/5
The book in three phrases:
Stream of consciousness
Slow burn
Retro slasher
Format read:
Kindle, audiobook
Genre:
Slasher horror
Content warnings
- Parent death
The Synopsis (from memory)
Tolly Driver killed six people and this is him telling us how it happened. I’m really not even sure what else to add here.
The Review (TLDR)
This was just fine. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. I read 95% of it on my Kindle and listened to the last 5% and I actually think I would have liked it a lot more listening to the whole thing. I really liked the narrator. I also preordered a copy of the physical book before I was approved for it on NetGalley.
It’s very Stephen Graham Jones-y in the sort of rambling stream of consciousness writing style which I didn’t mind. It was very slasher-y but in a much less obnoxious way than My Heart is a Chainsaw (I think, I didn’t even finish that one).
There isn’t much that really stands out to me as really good or really bad in this one, I just liked it. I enjoyed it.
The Good
The slasher aspect. I really liked the slasher aspect of this and that it wasn’t overbearing like in My Heart is a Chainsaw. As the book goes on we see learn how the slasher develops.
The writing style. This is kind of written like a stream of consciousness letter to an old friend (Amber) but not really in a letter format. It has a lot of random but related side tangents which I could see why people might not like but I enjoyed it!
The POV. We don’t get that many books written from the POV of a serial killer (at least not that I’ve personally encountered) and I thought it was really well done in this one. We follow along as he basically watches himself become a slasher and is just along for the ride at the same time. It’s interesting that it’s almost an out of body experience for him and I enjoyed reading from that perspective.
The Bad
A little too slow burn for me. I don’t always mind slow burn but it took a quite a while to really get into the slasher part of this. We got a lot of background leading up to it, and most of it is relevant but it was also quite slow moving.
Should you read I Was A Teenage Slasher, too?
I think it’s worth a shot! Stephen Graham Jones is definitely not for everyone, he’s hit or miss for me so far, but I’ll keep trying his books! I know this one won’t be for everyone but it’s definitely not bad! In my ranking of the four books from him I’ve read so far, it’s second.
Buy I Was A Teenage Slasher here.
Have you read I Was A Teenage Slasher? What did you think of it? Would you recommend it? I want to hear your thoughts!
