Author: Kailee Pedersen
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pages: 320
Publication date: August 20, 2024
*ARC received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Intro (Goodreads synopsis)
The last thing Nick Morrow expected to receive was an invitation from his father to return home. When he left rural Nebraska behind, he believed he was leaving everything there, including his abusive father, Carlyle, and the farm that loomed so large in memory, forever.
But neither Nick nor his brother Joshua, disowned for marrying Emilia, a woman of Asian descent, can ignore such summons from their father, who hopes for a deathbed reconciliation. Predictably, Joshua and Carlyle quickly warm to each other while Nick and Emilia are left to their own devices. Nick puts the time to good use and his flirtation with Emilia quickly blooms into romance. Though not long after the affair turns intimate, Nick begins to suspect that Emilia’s interest in him may have sinister, and possibly even ancient, motivations.
Punctuated by scenes from Nick’s adolescent years, when memories of a queer awakening and a shadowy presence stalking the farm altered the trajectory of his life forever, Sacrificial Animals explores the violent legacy of inherited trauma and the total collapse of a family in its wake.
My thoughts
I had such high hopes for this book. I love atmospheric horror. I adore when the atmosphere itself feels like a character. Like a presence. And I really enjoyed finding these devices in this story.
What didn't work for me in this story was mostly the writing style. I feel as though the prose really bogged the story down at times and the plot felt very sluggish. I found myself getting bored waiting for something to actually happen. It is well over the halfway mark that the plot actually starts to really get moving, and in my opinion, even what was meant to be the climax of the story wasn't enough for me to justify reading through so many slow points.
The author also chooses not to use quotation marks to identify dialogue which I respect as a stylistic choice, but their were instances where it was difficult to differentiate between what was dialogue and what wasn't.
Overall this book wasn't totally my cup of tea, but it did have aspects that I enjoyed, so I would say that if you enjoy atmospheric horror and are okay with a slower story, I would give this a shot.
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