review of: the lamb will slaughter the lion by margaret killjoy

★★★.75

content warnings: death, animal death, gore, violence, suicide, body horror, murder, police brutality, injury detail, grief, mentioned rape

official summary:

margaret killjoy's danielle cain series is a dropkick in the mouth anarcho-punk fantasy that pits travelling anarchist danielle cain against vengeful demons, hypocritical ideologues, and brutal, unfeeling officers of the law.

searching for clues about her best friend's mysterious suicide, danielle ventures to the squatter, utopian town of freedom, iowa, and witnesses a protector spirit -- in the form of a blood-red, three-antlered deer -- begin to turn on its summoners. she and her new friends have to act fast if they're going to save the town -- or get out alive.

my thoughts:

this book is a 125 page horror novella that absolutely knows what it wants to say. because of how short it is, it really does jump straight into the action and doesn't bullshit the points it's trying to make. that being said, due to the length the relationships in the book are also very underdeveloped and i don't feel like they should trust eachother as much as they do by the end. the actual horror scenes and the plot is interesting and well-described in my opinion but it definately could have done with an extra like 50 pages of just character, relationship, and tension building to have really been perfect.

i've got to say, the book is marketed correctly! it really is a punk horror fantasy. no lies there. the themes and messages of the story are very punk. i mean, i got very much 'the murderous deer spirit is a better option than the police, at least' vibes from this.

the characters are interesting and fun to follow! like i said, a little more development would have been nice but they are cool. the days, vulture, brynn, and danielle were all really sympathetic people. the way thursday was gaurding doomsday? super sweet. vulture's whole deal is great. i really liked that brynn and danielle talked about their relationship and the conclusion they came to, it's something i think was pretty well-done and as an aromantic person i really appreciated the way it was done. danielle herself is a very neat protagnist andf i love her motivation changes part way through to just being 'well i'm here already, might as well'. i would have liked to see more of the way that clay affected her i suppose, just because his suicide didn't really make me feel any emotions, y'know? it's a similar thing with rebecca, too. eric and kestrel were also interesting because i could kinda see where they were coming from. like danielle said, they're young and idealistic and that makes them a little too... like that. Y'know?

i really appreciated the community vibes and while i am doubtful of the amount they trust eachother, i feel like that easy trust really brings out the like, punk community aspects of the novella. the way everyone in freedom knows and (mostly) trusts eachother was nice to see. their whole anarchy commune thing was also very cool. i can totally see why so many people moved there, it really does seem like paradise. apart from the whole deer thing.

the ending was also great, it tied up most of the loose ends of the story apart from one or two that i assume will be picked up in the sequel. fun fact: when i originally read this, i didn't know this was a series. apparently, the sequel is about 40ish pages longer than this one so hopefully that'll fix my main problem with this book. i'm planning on picking that one up sometime soon because while this book wasn't perfect it was definately fun to read so i'll probably like the next one too.

see, with the way i'm talking about this you might wonder why i didn't rate it higher. obviously, i've already mentioned one of the problems, the whole 'it was too short' thing, but the other problem was that despite being classified as a horror novella, this didn't scare me. like at all. it felt more like dark fantasy or dark magical realism, all paired with some action elements. but it wasn't really horror, y'know? if it was a little scarier and a little longer, i'd probably up the rating by like a whole star but it just missed the mark, a little. not to say you shouldn't pick it up, if you think you'll like than you should totally read it! it's just not quite meeting my expecations for it. along with that, a certain scene where our protagnists find a body also just didn't hit for me. it felt like there was just?? no reaction? like there was but it felt very underwhelming for the situation? so that's another problem i had with it.

overall, yeah a great anarcho-punk light horror fantasy novella, though it's got a couple flaws. despite that, i'm looking forward to reading the sequel and i hope it improves and builds on everything presented in this book. if you thought this sounded up your alley, i do recommened reading it, just make sure to set your expecations accordingly.

one last quick note: can we appreciate how sick that tile is?? cause it's really cool. same as the author's name actually, that's what drew me to it originally, it sounded very cool.