The only Good Indians

 Author: Stephen Graham Jones 

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Original publication date: July 14, 2020

Book description: 

Seamlessly blending classic horror and a dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary, The Only Good Indians follows four American Indian men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a violent, vengeful way

Thoughts:

This has a weak start for me. It starts with a man living his life very commonly with his wife. They have very obvious differences, she is not a native but they do not care. Except they do and that small difference is wedged between them. 

But soon you start to see there is something. He is tormented by a hunt he and his friends participated in. They hunted in a forbidden area and they made such a massacre that years later is his biggest regret. 

HE faces a few issues a friendship with a woman which causes internal struggle and also into his marriage. He is driving himself crazy. He feels haunted. He starts to act and think crazy. You follow the story from his POV so it is hard to decide if he is imagining things or if there is really something spiritual happening. 

After he makes a decision to verify if his coworker is really the Woman Elk coming back from years ago to kill him or not everything starts to pick up. This has a very weird vibe. Weird as in I am not sure how to describe it. 

You follow each of the men involved in the hunt, those who are alive at least. Their lives have taken a few different routes and they grew apart. Two of them decided to leave the reservation and two stayed. 

You see a bit of their lives, it is told in a few POV. You get to understand the reason why we see each person introduced. 

It is very hard to speak about this book. Initially, I was weirded out and I thought I was not understanding something. I was listening to the story and for a few chapters, I was not sure if the issue was the book or the fact that I was listening to the story. I did figure out it was the story. It was a bit too weird.

Note: Better be aware there are descriptions of deaths, killings, animal killing, and if you are very sensitive to violence and cruelty you will feel bothered by it.

My case was a personal struggle as I was too bothered by a few of the decisions or actions of the characters here. It is not the gore but the cruelty that bothered me the most. Some people might find that not as a relevant aspect though.

I really liked the story but I can't say I enjoy the theme but it was a good ride. I will be getting a physical copy of this book later on and rereading it.

This book was part of the Literally dead book club, the last book for this year. I am actually very happy about participating. I did not love all of the books but I enjoyed all of them so far, or at least the vast majority of them.