Book Review: Blood in the Woods by J.P. Willie

 GREETINGS STACK WORMS!!!

It's, uh, been a bit. Hasn't it? Yeah...anyway, I've got a review for ya. Are y'all ready? 

In the last half of February, I read Blood in the Woods by J.P. Willie. I had requested this from Hellbound books. Though, I wasn't quite expecting it. I had reached out to see if there'd be a sequel to another book from them that I liked, unfortunately, there won't be (at least not yet) so they said to pick out another title I'd like to review. I picked this one, seeing as it had been on my Want to Read list for a while. 

Now, originally I did receive this title for free. However, I had a lot of problems opening the link they sent (my fault not theirs), so I went ahead and bought the book off of Amazon. I got a new Fire tablet recently and it was easier to just get it through them. 

I got another title from Hellbound, which I've started and is pretty short so it should be coming here soon. 

Let's start the review. Of course, I gotta get a few more things outta the way. 

WARNING THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD...DUH!!!

TRIGGER WARNINGS: 

- Animal Death

- Swearing (retard and faggot are used as well)

- Kidnapping

- Explicit Child Abuse/ Pedophilia 

- Child Death

- Boys will be Boys 

- Gore/Blood

- Some Sexual Content (referring to adults this time)

- Bullying 

The Plot:

This story is told via flashbacks from the main character, Jody. He has returned to his childhood home for a short time, attending an old friend's sister's funeral. reminisces about the days he and his friend Jack had run amuck on Rhine Road. During these days Jody describes how deep his and Jack's friendship was with examples of putting smoke bombs in peoples' mailboxes, trying to pop tires, being daredevils, mouthing off to adults, and fighting off Devil worshippers. LE GASP!

That's right! This is a Satanic Panic story, however, I give it credit for exploring the differences between Devil Worship, Satanism, and the occult. One of my favorite scenes is where Pepaw (Jody's grandfather) goes into an open-minded spiel about other religions. Despite him being a God-fearing man, he's actually a pretty chill dude. I like Pepaw, he's the best part. Too bad he's not in a lot of the book. 

Anyway, the triggering event that winds up, getting Jody into trouble with the Devil Worshippers is that he finds an abandoned 18 wheeler with 2 sacrificed calves. He calls the police about it, which scares and pisses off the devil worshippers. They start harassing him and Jack is accidentally dragged into it, when visiting the mall and one of the worshippers (Scott a.k.a. Hairlip) chases them, trying to kill them. 

The threats escalate as the years continue; the boys are followed, spied on, and Jack's dog is killed and decapitated. The more they keep quiet about these incidents the worse their attitudes become (they weren't that great, to begin with). Their town of Hammond, Louisiana considers the boys to be loose cannons, but no matter how they are disciplined they continue to worsen. At a point, Jody is sent to see a therapist, whom he just brushes off. 

All of it comes to a head during the end of the school dance in 1993, just before Jody has to move to a new town with his family. All three devil worshippers work to hunt them down that night, herding them to an abandoned house that they use for sacrifices. Despite being captured, Jody is able to get them free, then take down (kill) Scott and Mitch (who was a mailman for some reason), with the third, Rebecca, being arrested about a week later. 

After healing a little bit, it's time for Jody to move, so he says goodbye to his blood brother, Jack. Telling him that they'll always be the Rhine Road Boys. Promptly leaves...and then losses touch with Jack by junior year in high school. 

THE BAD:

And that ending doesn't really make sense to me, because Jamie (Jack's sister) is who the funeral is for. If Jody and Jack's friendship had been cut by Junior year and Jody is 26 at the time of the funeral, how can he call Jamie a good friend? We never spend any time with Jody getting to know Jamie, only Jack. Who while is mentioned in the last chapter isn't seen. Why didn't we get to see grown-up Jack grieving for his little sister? Why don't we get to see Jody trying to comfort his old best friend/blood brother? 

I just don't buy that they were such close friends, but it was pretty easy to break them up. As a person, who had a close friend move (we were so close we were known as twins to the entire high school) states away, and still making our friendship work, then I gotta call bullshit. I mean it's heartbreaking and I know this was a semi-autobio of the author, but this just seems way too easy. Especially, going through something as rough as nearly being murdered and killing two people together. 

People who kill together, stay together. That's just kind of how that should work. Also, Jody is a bit of a dumbass. Sure, I get he was a kid, but he had information and advice, that he seemed to refuse to use. Every bad thing the devil worshippers do, he believes were separate harassers. Despite none of it had started to happen until after he called the cops. Rocking his trailer to scare him? Being chased and nearly killed in the middle of the mall? Jack's dog being killed? Seeing people spying on him? You'd think, he'd put all of this together, but no. Jack is the one that has to be the one to get the connection and has to keep reminding Jody about them. 

Pepaw tells Jody's mom about the local devil worshippers, alerting her to the danger that might befall her sons, and that he won't always be around to protect them. And what does the lady do? Jack-shit. All she likes to do is beat and scold Jody. Maybe, it's a southern mom thing that I don't get, but when a child is hurting and scared, you don't beat the shit out of them. Sure, Jody doesn't care, but seriously this mother knows that something is wrong with her son and doesn't do anything about it until he concusses someone on the basketball floor. By then it is way too late. 

This book is extremely southern, which really isn't a bad thing, especially for a gal who grew up with southerners. But maybe Illinois southern and Louisiana southern are just that different. I was spanked, put into time out, put to work when I did things wrong, grounded for bad grades; so it's not like there wasn't discipline in my time, I just think this was too much. 

THE GOOD:

Best characters: Pepaw and Taco Bell guy.

I liked Jody and Jack, a good portion of the time. I didn't even really mind when they acted out on their trauma. That's normal, but the acting like hot shit got on my nerves. And no, it's not because I'm a girl. I grew up with a pack of boys, but they always put up or shut up, not run off at the mouth.  

The plot was interesting. Though there were things that went nowhere. And pacing could have been tweaked a bit. Some scenes went on a bit too long. Or things were repeated when not needed. Still good though. 

I like that two out of three of the devil worshippers were killed. They really fucking deserved it. And in such gloriously gory ways, it was the best. I still think Rebecca deserved to be killed as well, but she only got prison. Which I am calling out as some sexist bullshit. She was one of the main child molesters, yet she got away with her life? Not cool. 

My star rating is 3.5, but since most sites don't let us do the .5 stars, I'll round up. I did read this book pretty quickly and while I bitched a lot, I didn't hate it as much as it came across. The author did a rather nice job at trying to keep the religious aspect open-minded. Which I appreciated. That was smart. Usually, they'd just blame it on "the devil made me do it" aspect instead of some people are just utter shit heads that don't deserve the air they breathe part. 

I do think that it could have some more editing with the grammar, but if you're not a stickler like me, then I'm sure this won't bother you. 

Have you read it? What did you think? Comment to let me know, even if you just want to curse me out for 'not understanding the book'. 

Alright, that's it for now. I'll be back later. Promise it won't take me over a month this time. Toodles!!

- Bug