Title: I Was A Teenage Slasher
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Source: DRC via NetGalley (Saga Press, S&S/Saga Press) in exchange for an honest review
Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Synopsis: Goodreads
Purchase Link: Amazon

Other books by this author:
The Only Good Indians

The Indian Lake Trilogy
My Heart is a Chainsaw
Don’t Fear the Reaper
The Angel of Indian Lake

Why did I choose to read this book?

Saga Press keeps sending me new Stephen Graham Jones books via email that I can easily access via NetGalley and honestly I am here for it. Please keep sending them, because I will keep reading them! I love Jones’s books! I love finding a surprise email that is like “here’s some more books by this author you like for free, before they are published, please tell us what you think!” My answer is yes! I will!

What is this book about?

This book takes the slasher genre and asks the question: what if being the slasher wasn’t a choice? What if it was something that happened to you and you didn’t have a choice about being part of the formula? Maybe it’s like a virus or a ritual that requires certain things to happen to you, but either way you could find yourself out there cutting up jerks who wronged you without even knowing how you got there! And once you realize your new reality, can you fight it? Can you choose to stop being a slasher?

What is notable about this story?

I have said in the past that what’s really interesting about Jones’s writing is that his horror assumes that there are players in the story that know what’s going on and why. Jade Daniels is a horror/slasher NERD so when slashers start showing up (and keep showing up!) in her town she’s trying to teach everyone around her about how the formula works and how to combat the slasher so as many people survive as possible. Instead of the typical horror story buffeting the characters around and having them hide in the attic or the basement, Jones’s characters are aware that they might be buffeted around and actively try to avoid the tropes. I love everything about his approach, plus it makes the horror genre more accessible to those of us that may not be super nerds about it.

In this story a boy becomes a slasher on a night that another slasher comes back from the dead, and his best friend is the horror nerd (along with her brother) and they try to work together to figure out how he became a slasher and prevent him from killing the people his new condition seems to be forcing him to kill (spoiler: they don’t do a great job of this lol). This new approach to this kind of story is fascinating, it’s like seeing the tunnels under Disney world or walking through the factory that makes your favorite candy or something – a view into a phenomenon that previously we just haven’t explored and taken for granted. Humanizing the slasher? WILD but I’m here for it.

Was anything not so great?

Again, this is coming from a HUGE Stephen Graham Jones fan so it’s more of an observation than a critique – I’m starting to kind of feel like I’m in a college course on Horror Books and these novels are required reading. They are amazing so I don’t mind reading them, but I feel like they are heading in a direction where an industrious, off-the-beaten-path type “cool” professor could use them to teach people how to write/think about the horror genre. Which, honestly, genius BUT if they weren’t as entertaining as they were, it would feel like analysis homework and I think I would start to shy away from them.

TL:DR – I see you professor, just try to also keep us casuals in mind when you are writing so we can continue to enjoy your stuff please!

What’s the verdict?

5 stars all day every day. What an amazing new heartbreaking way to look at the elements of horror stories. If you love horror and if you trust me to send you in the direction of amazing books, you absolutely MUST pick this one up.

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