What if those monsters that we deal with, even today, those monsters with so much hate in their hearts, turned out to be actual monsters? Evil to the bone monsters that needed to be fought with sword and magic? That’s where Clark takes us in this fast-paced novella that will leave your heart racing. 

Ring Shout takes us back to 1920’s Macon, Georgia, to the heart of Klan country. But these aren’t just regular hate-filled Klansmen, these are Ku Kluxes. If you have the sight, you could see that these are true monsters. They are 9 feet tall, bone white, with ivory claws and 6 eyes on their pointed heads. Our hero Maryse and her friends are tasked with fighting them. On their side is the power of the Shout, and of old Gullah magic. As the Klan sets out with a plan to use the movie Birth of a Nation to unleash an ancient terror on the earth, Maryse must make some horrible choices in order to save the world from the hate that would overcome it.

I loved this little book & I give it a solid 4 stars- I mean, how timely did it end up being?!  It is full of stellar body horror in just the right amounts, and then it adds in a big shovel-full of Lovecraftian monster madness- who could ask for more? But Clark also includes just enough true history to feel uncomfortably realistic in the worst ways. One thing it is not is subtle, so be prepared for some full-on, swords-out racist fighting! And that is something we surely need more of!

Many thanks to NetGalley & Tor for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

But when I try to picture a utopia, where we, like, all rise above, and we’re kind and we grow as a species, I can’t see it. So either I’m too dumb to have that kind of vision, or I’m just smart enough to know that humans could never pull it off. It’s way easier to imagine dystopia, and war, and all the bullshit we’ve been living in.

JRJ

Strap in, bitches! We are not in a utopia, that’s for sure. This book is a high-octane ride from the very beginning. Lucy and Bucket are best friends, and just about the only brown kids in their crap hillbilly town of Turner Falls, Oregon. But Lucy is confident that they can make it through their senior year and put the town in their rearview as long as they have each other. Unfortunately, their plans fall apart one day in school when one of the rich kids attacks & kills the teacher with a textbook. In a matter of minutes, the room is swarming with police and he is shot. But not before Lucy & Bucket saw his strange blue eyes and saw that weird thing in his neck.

Something very wrong is going on in Turner Falls. And it all connects back to the giant biotech company IMTECH, who has decided to use the children of its own execs as guinea pigs for an insane experiment.

Now Lucy, Bucket, and another of their outcast friends Brewer are on a mission to save the world.

The promo material calls this book a conspiracy thriller, and that’s just about right- it will take you down all the rabbit holes of all the conspiracies you’ve heard out there: drones, government monitoring, implants. But it does it all through the lens of a bad-ass female protagonist, so there’s that! Lucy is easy to root for. This book has everything a horror/thriller lover might want: lots of gore, a fast paced plot, and so much action! 

But it just wasn’t my style. I’m more of a slow burn kind of gal. What really saved this book for me was the ending, where the language shifted from crass teenage dialogue (which was realistic, I thought) to a more poetic style. I won’t tell you why, but I’m glad I hung in until then. It really opened up at that point for me.
I gave this one almost four stars 3.75! But that is just a matter of personal taste. This book is well written and a lot of fun, and I think a lot of other people will just love it!