Book Review: "The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion" by Margaret Killjoy

This was a difficult one. The book was not all too long, nor was it overly complex and it started off really sounding quite good. A bad-ass female protagonist with a story of returning back to her former haunt and an elusive 'Clay' - it all sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, the writing really let this story down so I will not be moving on to book two in the series as I genuinely do not think it is worth it. However, do not simply take my review as gospel - check out the book for yourself. It has an audience - it just was not my thing.

When back in Freedom, Iowa, nothing is as it seems anymore as Danielle Cain returns after her friend's suicide. Noticing how things have taken a turn for the worst, Danielle sees how the town has summoned a spirit to judge them, ruling them as though they cannot rule themselves. Her and her new team of misfits needs to make sense of this quickly because you cannot kill it as it is immortal.

One mark for having a bad-ass storyline and a character literally named Doomsday. But apart from that, this book felt rather empty to me. I think this is partially my own fault on simply relying on Amazon recommendations and not taking it upon myself to read a preview or something. I personally love big, flowery, vibrant and dark descriptions that you would probably best find in the gothic realms of Thornfield Hall from Jane Eyre rather than quick action scenes and weird happenings for no reason.

I also felt like a lot of things in this book were very matter-of-fact rather than being preceeded with any warning signs or clues that made the reader feel like they could piece parts of the book together to create a bigger meaning. When the little group of characters who knew Clay meet Danielle Cain they say something like 'you're the Danielle Cain' and you don't really know why she's so special apart from the fact she's Clay's best friend. After which, that is never mentioned again and Danielle becomes an almost background character to the others. A lot of this book is just exposition where Danielle learns the ways of the town rather than anything major actually happening to develop her character. The fact she is a Danielle Cain is perfectly fine, but I definitely would not call her the 'the' of anything. She certainly is not that special.

Moving back to atmosphere - there was none. Most of this book just read like the bad anime you're watching between Black Butler and Full Metal Alchemist just so Netflix does not think you're replaying the same shite over and over again. It reads like a children's fantasy novel littered with silly profanities here and there which, if cut out, would have made no difference to the dialogue apart from making a teenager think they are bad-ass because they swore. It left a bad taste and felt juvenile. The atmosphere description was almost non-existent which means that anything frightening that does happen kind of just happens without impact because nothing is established as dark and dismal. Everything is kind of just there and empty.

All in all, I did not enjoy this book because of its disjointed nature. It had not a single drop of atmosphere, there was no scene-setting, there was no character development and there was too much exposition. There was no reason for a lot of the stuff happening in the book and there was nothing to think about for a time. It felt messy and like a first-draft of a teen novel rather than a sophisticated gothic. A lot of it read like the TV tie-in of a bad anime show and the writer should probably get someone to redraft their work before they put it on the shelves.

But, as I have said before, give it a read for yourself before you read reviews so that you can come in with a fresh perspective. I will not be reading the second book, but that does not mean that nobody liked it. Thank you for keeping an open mind towards your literature choices.