Really loved this from beginning to end. There were a few parts where it was slow but there was such good character development that I was always invest in the outcome. Also, I think the fear of the unknown was a whole character in itself. Kudos on this electric debut!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for early access.

I think this was a serviceable horror that speaks to a larger cultural and societal issue in the ways good horror should. I only give it the mid rating because I'm torn on the aspect of paranormal in this novel. While things are hinted to be supernatural and certain places sold this as a connection to Stranger Things-vibes, the paranormal was doubtful most of the way and only confirmed in the very back half of the story. It did bring about the nostalgic "IT" vibes with the nature of the creature 'Jack' though I'd argue he's more grey aligned than outright Bad.

Liz is a very good protagonist and the novel is exceptionally written and tackles its themes well so any fault I find in this book by itself would not stop me from picking up future writing. Adams doesn't shy away from scenes of death and destruction and she paints loving pictures of these girls and their families before tearing it away from you with images of their deaths. I think Liz does a decent job of not putting all her eggs in one basket when it comes to suspects. She may have suspicions but other than immediately telling her best friend that she thinks it's her dad and brother and causing a fight, Liz keeps a level-ish head and gathers as much information as she can before heading out to deal with the issue herself.
I do find the ending a bit of a let down but it does track with what the story was going for I guess. Like I said, very good writing and a well-rounded protagonist make up for some of the other flaws for me.

I will be reviewing a physical copy of this book that I bought myself on my social media platforms but thank you agin to Random House for the digital arc

My feelings toward this novel are complicated. I enjoyed the suspense, mystery of the missing Black girls and the identity of the Jackal, referred to as Jack.

In this town, 95% of them in my opinion are shitty. Which brings me to the real world problem of the lack of coverage missing Black girls receive. This is the main premise Jackal highlights, as the recent Black girl to go missing is 11- years old and biracial. Her mom is caucus, furious that her child became missing on her wedding night and that she is receiving an urgency of importance from the police because they view her as a Black girl, thus unimportant.

The narrative gave a spotlight to the reality of this truth. That Black women are the most unprotective class, period. How disheartening society is and ostracizes the very queens who walk this earth. There will be a change to it, I know it.

Thankful I switched from the ebook to its audio.

This book was all over the place for me. Was it a thriller? No. A mystery? Wait no. It’s horror. (That was my thought process when I started reading it). I loved that topics such as class and race were brought up throughout the story but the ending completely ruined it for me. I do think this novel will be a hit for a lot of readers, but I am not into paranormal stuff.

This book was very interesting but it was a really good read. I found it very easy to read to I highly recommend.

This was quite a ride: some parts were amazing and some left me confused. The fantasy element didn’t make any sense to me, and the narrative lost its footing a few times, but I was moved by the compassion and ferocity of the protagonist, Liz.
The story revolves around a missing child, and making connections among over a dozen missing/killed children over the recent years. Liz tries to find her friend’s daughter while dealing with her own nightmares from the past.
I think this book will appeal to a specific audience but not be for everyone.
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the arc. My review is at https://www.instagram.com/p/CmO-_vNLgpG/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I love the premises of the book and I enjoyed reading it throughout. I am so glad that I got a chance to read the book. Thank you.

Jackal was WILD and unlike any story I've ever encountered. For a moment I thought we had gone a bit off the rails, but by the end, Adams pulls it off! This is not for the faint of heart. This is a mystery but it is one of the scariest mysteries I've ever encountered.

I'm not sure if this was the author's intent or not, but I was impressed at how much I was rooting for the protagonist by the end after really disliking her initially. I didn't guess the ending, which is always nice.

A wonderful mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end - is it a monster or a real person who is taking and raviging black girls every year on a specific day? You may be shocked by the ending, I know I was.

There were a few times throghout the story where I was talking to the MC and rolling my eyes. A few moments of 'the girl running away from the threat and falling in the mud'. I was like
'Come on, be better than this!!'
'Why are you doing that?'
'Don't go there, come on!'

Ah well. Sometimes you just have to be patient and wait for the interesting part of the story to come back around.

WOW. What a stunner. Similar to Tiffany D Jackson books, the book explores racism, police, etc. all through the lens of horror/thriller. I found it riveting, I couldn't put it down, I was so invested in the characters and what became of them. I thought this book was so well written and was actually shocked to learn it was a debut?? I will definitely read anything Erin E. Adams writes next because she knows how to pack a punch. If you're a horror girly or you enjoy TJD books, pick up JACKAL!

Liz returns home to attend a wedding. A young black girl goes missing and she is not the first black girl to go missing from this town.

The book started off good. I was really interested in Liz and her story and the missing girls but it was towards the middle to the end that the book started getting weird. I kind of lost interest and it was just not for me.

Thank you Netgalley and Bantam books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Liz thinks she's returning to her hometown to celebrate the wedding of her childhood friend, but instead she uncovers the story behind the sinister and mysterious deaths of several local young Black girls.

Adams is a talented author and great storyteller, but the conclusion to <u>Jackal</u>was just too messy for my taste, and I didn't really appreciate or enjoy the sci fi aspect. <spoiler>I think this story would have been better told as either solely psych/thriller-decades long serial killers-, or all sci fi straight from the beginning. Though Jack's Anubis background became more obvious as the story progressed, it was still just too chaotic for me.</spoiler>Also, this story was bogged down by a mess of unnecessary characters. There were too many names that were mentioned once and then never again. There were several times where I completely forgot characters names, and even a few where I think some had been edited out but accidentally showed up again later. If this story had just been cleaned up some more, it definitely would have been a 4 star read.

Think of Jackal as a mystery/thriller with a twist of horror/fantasy. Normally I like books that blend genres, and I did like Jackal. I just didn't love it as much as I wanted to, given the excellent start, compelling mystery, creepy small town, and the undeniable truths of race and class.

In Erin E. Adams's debut, Jackal is about a Black woman who returns to her mostly white Pennsylvania town where her best friend's daughter goes missing and brings up similar unsolved mysteries of the past.

The book approaches literary fiction stylistically and mid-way through I was convinced this would be one of my Top 3 reads of the year. Unfortunately, the author chooses an unusual path for the climax and it fell flat for me. I know a lot of people love this book from cover to cover, but it just felt likeI had invested in an excellent story that featured a confusing, tacked-on ending that left me questioning too many loose ends.

That said, I still recommend it and I would read her next book in a heartbeat.

Jackal is a story that follows the disappearances of young black girls in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The story begins with Liz Rocher, a young black woman returning to Johnstown after many years of avoidance. However, when her best friend invites her to her best friend's wedding she cannot avoid her hometown any longer.

Liz is filled with anxiety based on memories and moments in her past and her present that continue to plague her. If not for her friend Mel and Mel's daughter who absolutely adores her, Liz would do whatever she could to avoid Johnstown. Yet Johnstown doesn't leave her much choice of running away anymore when her friend's daughter goes missing. What makes it worse is the girl ends up disappearing while Liz was watching her.

Jackal spirals and twists between thriller and fantasy. I fail to label it as a horror book because to me it didn't give that complete vibe of true horror. Yes young, black girls are being murdered in visceral ways but it plays out more like a true crime investigation than a horror novel.

I have to say honestly Jackal intrigued me for the fact that my family grew up around Johnstown, PA. The story and combination of tales parents tell their children to keep them out of the woods certainly peaked my interest. Still like the heart that is not present in the Jackal, the story is missing something. To me it is not truly fleshed out and in some cases towards the end appeared rushed.

It is hard to determine where the line is drawn from fact and fiction, folklore and evidence. With being around Johnstown for a good portion of my life, I never was witness to any signs of racism in the town. True it is a very white community but I was never privy to any experiences where I saw someone being subjected to different treatment because of the color of their skin. Just the notion of such happening where I am familiar makes me even more curious to uncover the truth.

All together Jackal was an intriguing read. Adams blends an almost folklore take of why things go wrong and why people may turn violent with the reality that sometimes people are just evil. It isn't the best book out there when it comes to the topics it presents to the reader , but it still is a unique read. Until next time, happy reading!

3.5 ⭐️‘s
This book is struggling to find its genre. Is it thriller, police procedural or horror? I, too, was all over the place with this book, I liked it, I loved it AND I hated it. A book that’s not going to be on my favorites list. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I might not be entirely sure of what I just read, but I know that I loved it! Jackal is Erin E. Adams's debut novel, and it is simply put, a bizarre and genius story about black girls going missing. Liz is at the center of our story, and she is such an incredibly complex and real character. There are so many genres mixed in here, and it is literature, mystery, horror, and a little suspense all rolled into one wild and thought-provoking book. The ending is what got a little confusing for me, and there was a real or imagined supernatural element that I could never figure out. This has a really dark plotline and is gory as well so I wouldn't say it is for the faint of heart. Adams touches on a large array of social topics such as racism, poverty, and more, and there is a heck of a lot packed into these 318 pages.

The mystery really surprised me, and I had absolutely no idea how this one was going to end. It all came together in a major way, and there were a few times that my heart was absolutely racing. Technically Liz isn't our only narrator, and I can't even tell you how interesting and creepy that made the storyline. I was also personally a huge fan of the audiobook, and both Sandra Okuboyejo & William DeMeritt were impeccable narrators. There wasn't anything I didn't like about them, or the audio and I would highly recommend listening to Jackal if you are so inclined. This obviously isn't going to be a book for everyone, so I think you will need to be mindful of that before picking it up. It is strange at times and it was hard for me to comprehend the extent of everything that was going on, but that, of course, is a me problem and not everyone will feel this way. I would recommend Jackal to horror and mystery readers that crave dark storylines and emotive content.

Thank you to the publishers for my complimentary listening and reader copies of this book. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

Somehow I picked up Jackal right after finishing Darling by Mercedes M. Yardley, and the former has a lot of the same themes and plot lines that I disliked in the latter. A missing child, a serial killer, a small town with a dark past, and a story that focuses far too much on the search for the child and not enough on whatever is supposed to be scary/frightening/horror-esque about the novel.

Jackal has a lot of promise, but I felt that it failed to live up to its potential. A great opportunity for meditation on race relations in small town history took a backseat to the protagonist's obsessive search for her best friend's missing daughter and her own bumbling through her love life. The supernatural aspect, not-so-subtly hinted at throughout the novel in aside chapters, still managed to come out of left field at the end of the book. I love a weird supernatural bent, but this felt unnecessary and too little, too late. The serial killer plot and the civil rights angle were plenty.

I found the writing difficult to get into as well. Liz's thoughts, the way she spoke, the way she prioritized things, none of it made sense to me. It was like I was skimming the surface of her character, skating on thick ice and unable to break through to her motivations and logic. Things just weren't described or plotted in a way that made sense to my brain, which made for a frustrating read.

Jackal was such an interesting read because it crosses horror, thriller, and mystery all together. It was beautifully written.

The beginning captivated me, but as the story went on I was slowly not enjoying my time reading. I loved the discussions on racism and classism weaved in the book.