I am often drawn to stories that delve deep into the human experience. I thought that this novel about two sons reuniting in their childhood home with a less-than-kind father would be a good fit. Carlyle Morrow is a domineering man who happens to be quite ill and orders an immediate gathering of his family. What does Carlyle need from his mistreated sons as he nears the end of his life? Families can be so complicated. What are the emotions and dynamics possibly at play . . . Remorse? Forgiveness? Redemption? Healing?

I enjoyed that there was an interesting element of cultural folklore woven into the overall plot line. I’m still such a big fan of old-school legends and fairytales.

There is a constant building pressure, an echo of generational abuse, a pervasive sadness that lurks through each page of this book. I can’t say that it was exactly a feeling of suspense . . . more like the prose conjures a heavy weight of longing, hopelessness, and dread. I had a hard time connecting with the unnecessarily baroque narrative style or finding a reason to care about the fate of its characters . . . I found the pacing quite slow, repetitive, and meandering at times.

I'd like to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of Sacrificial Animals for my unbiased evaluation.  2 stars

2.5 Stars rounded up

This book takes slow burn to a whole other level, and by that I mean nothing happens in this book until the 70% mark. Though I enjoyed the way things progressed after that, I have to ask myself does that thirty percent make up for the rest of it? I'm not sure...

Sacrificial Animals is an atmospheric literary horror that touches on topics of generational trauma, Chinese mythology, toxic masculinity, and figuring out where one fits into this strange world. The story flips back and forth between past and present following our main character, Nick. Nick's father was harsh and abusive to both him & his brother, Joshua. As the younger son, he was seen as inferior in his father's eyes and dealt with the brunt of his father's abuse. Now in their 40s - Nick and Joshua are summoned home by their dying father. Joshua brings his wife, Emilia, home with him - despite the fact that his relationship with her is what got him disowned by his father. Tensions rise, relationships become tangled and messy, and the sense of dread slowly builds as the ending closes in on us.

First things first, the writing was exquisite *chefs kiss*. As I have read an early copy, I will refrain from using any direct quotes but there were parts of this story where I was highlighting whole paragraphs because the author does a fantastic job of digging deep into what it means to be a human, and what it means to grow up in a dysfunctional (and abusive) household. In addition, the setting of Stag's Crossing and rural Nebraska was described beautifully and really allows you to become immersed. My only complaint as far as writing was the dialogue - no quotation marks were used, which is not a problem itself, but the way conversations were formatted made it hard at times to understand who was talking and what exactly they were saying out loud vs. what was just a thought.

Unfortunately, the story itself was lackluster. I will say, I was pulled in at the beginning and was captivated learning about what Nick went through with his father all those years ago (and having his queer awakening) - but after a while, things got repetitive and I felt like we were learning the same information over and over again. I don't think the story does anything particularly surprising either - it is pretty easy to figure out early on where things are going and what the outcome will be.

There were things I loved about this book and things I really disliked. Overall, this is one that I can see having very mixed reviews - for those that hate it, I understand. For those that love it, I understand. Very torn on this one hence my right in the middle rating!

That being said, I will be on the lookout for new releases from this author 👀

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Nick is surprised to hear from his father. His father wasn't great. When he visits his family, things have changed. A nice read.

Sacrificial Animals is the story of a family. A family twisted by cruelty and what that cruelty sows.
While I really enjoyed the story told by this book, I have mixed feelings about it as a whole.
The good :
The family saga is believable and heartbreaking. The story is told in two periods, one when our main character, Nick is 13 and then 43. The story structure works and is compelling.
The ending. The blending of the Midwest U.S. and Asian mythology was my favorite part.
The not so good :
The writing style. Too often the author uses florid language. I'm not sure if it was a deliberate choice matched to the main character or just a young writer trying too hard. The first few chapters were very difficult to get through. The language did calm down after the opening and was much easier to enjoy.
There is a lot of animal cruelty in this book to match the cruelty the human characters heap on each other, so be warned.
All and all I really enjoyed the story and the author's voice. Hopefully that voice gets a little fine tuning.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance reading copy.

Sacrificial Animals is about the Morrow family, Nick, Joshua, their father Carlyle, and Joshua’s wife Emilia.

The boys’ mother dies giving birth to their stillborn baby brother, when they are still young children. Carlyle raises them without affection and is abusive, especially towards Nick.
In a dual timeline set up, told from the perspective of Nick, the story goes back and forth between Nick as a 14/15 year old and when he is an adult, early 40s.
I found this book very repetitive, what’s going on during Nick’s youth is gone over again in the adult timeline, just with the addition of his sister-in-law. Nothing really happens until you’re 85% through the book. I think that this story would be great if it was shortened into a short story or novella. It’s just too long with nothing happening and too much repetition.

This is a great concept for a horror novel, and there are moments—particularly toward the end—that are stunning and gothic and everything I wanted. I personally had a hard time connecting with this book because of the writing style, which is very baroque and kept me at arm's length from the characters. However, this is a personal reaction, and I think a different reader would experience this as atmospheric and elegant. Overall, it's clear that the author has a strong command on the story and achieved what she set out to do; I just wasn't the right reader for it.

Initially, I was bored with this book. It’s slow plot line and the author’s desire to throw in so many spelling bee words as possible made this tough to get into. My rule is I’ll read enough to “prime the pump” that is, 10-15%. After my initial attempt, I just kept going. I was waiting for the turning point, when it all started to make sense more or not have every college level vocabulary word crammed into it. I reached the end of the book and still didn’t find the turning point. It was a decent plot, but I don’t feel like it was well written. Not my cup of tea, I wish that I had liked it.

This description of this book sounded so good, but I was not able to get through it. the writing style was so hard to follow and confusing, that i had to just put it down.

I could barely get halfway through. The language is too flowery and feels like it is dragging on the most simple of sentences. It is not a book I personally enjoyed.

After the initial pages, I found myself not connecting with the story or characters, so I decided to pass on this book. Did not finish

“His suffering is rendered meaningless by the voice of his father tinny and distorted through the phone. Ordering him back to Stag’s Crossing where history must repeat until there is no more history left.”

I want to begin this review by saying that I think that the blurb spoils a lot of what happens in the second half of the book. I think the main thing that readers should know before heading into this novel is that it follows a man named Nick in past and present timelines. In the past timeline, readers see Nick as he grows up in an abusive household. In the present timeline, Nick returns to his childhood home after his father calls him and informs him that he is dying of cancer.

Both Nick and his brother Joshua return home to spend time with their dying father. Joshua brings his wife Emilia along for the visit, even though he was disowned for marrying her many years before due to the fact that she is Asian. Sacrificial Animals explores racism, abuse, and the lengths that these two sons will go to for parental approval.

The horror elements didn’t really appear until the last part of this book, but with the excessive foreshadowing I was able to predict exactly what would happen by the end. The past and present timelines felt very repetitive, rehashing the past in the present and foreshadowing the future during scenes of the past. I very rarely felt like I was learning anything new during the whole 320 pages of this book.

My biggest problem with this book was the writing style. I normally enjoy prose that leans towards poetry, however, the prose in this novel reads less like poetry and more like stream of consciousness. Every sentence runs on in a way that makes it feel clunky, and the excessive descriptive phrases used pulled me out of the story and made my eyes gloss over. With such a minimal and repetitive plot, this book relies heavily on the writing style to pull the reader into the world – unfortunately it made me want to finish the book as quickly as possible so I could be done reading it.

I really wanted to love this book, and I’m sad that I didn’t. Unfortunately, it just did not work for me.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I posted a Goodreads review on 6/19/2024 and I will be posting about this book in my monthly reading wrap-up on Instagram at the end of June.

This is an eerily fascinating book about a family whose patriarch, Carlyle has always been a hunter, and his two sons, Joshua and Nicholas. When they were younger, Carlyle forced them to hunt the foxes he was so fond of but Nick especially hated the gruesome practice and was happy to leave the family home. Now, Joshua returns home with his new wife, Emilia who is an Asian beauty and Nick is drawn to her as well. It's a crazy tale of mythology and deception and it's fairly violent so beware if you are squeamish!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

A story of generational violence and trauma. I really enjoyed this one. From start to finish, I was enthralled and it kept me guessing in the best way! One of those books that makes you wanna stay up all night trying to finish it. I love the style of the writing and the imagery that the author used. I will be looking forward to more from this author and will be recommending it to everyone that will listen!

I liked the set up of the book, but I did feel like it was slightly repetitive with the back-and-forth back-and-forth about the same people just slightly different times in our life, but dealing with the same issues. I like the focal aspect. However, I felt like the non-folklore aspect was a little thin, so it was hard to kind of really get into or care about the characters, even though the story and the writing was pretty good.

When Sacrificial Animals opens, we meet the Morrow family: the father, Carlyle and his two sons, Joshua and Nicholas. Carlyle is domineering and brash leaving Nick, the youngest—and the inferior in Carlyle’s eyes—to take the brunt of his violent actions and sharp tongue. When the eldest—Joshua—reveals his decision to marry an Asian woman, he is disowned by his racist father and sent away from the sprawling, grand estate of Stag’s Crossing.

Shifting forward in time, Carlyle seems to be softening with his old age but not much… Only enough to grant Nick, Joshua, and Joshua’s wife—Emilia—access back to Stag’s Crossing to see to his death and burial. Nick hasn’t seen Josh or Emilia for twenty years and though Emilia is Josh’s wife, she has a curious relationship with Nick. Soon, their relationship turns intimate but quickly grows in to something more alarming.

The story shifts between past and present timelines and while I think that both hold importance in the overall story, I enjoyed the present timeline so much more. The narrative takes on a slower pace and though it bodes well for building tension, I wish that we would have gotten to the heart of the story sooner. In my honest opinion, I feel this story would have read better had it come in around 220 pages versus the 320 that it is.

What I found interesting was that Pederson chose to narrate the story with the main focus on Nick when it’s clear (to me, at least) that Emilia is the star of the show here. While the scenes from Nick’s childhood became a little monotonous after a few chapters, I was awakened when scenes of Emilia appeared; I wanted to hear more about her character.

Here, I feel it necessary to say something about the writing style too which wasn’t my favorite, at least not in the first half. Sentences tended to be structured in not the most lucid of ways—often times venturing in to purple prose—and it only served to confuse readers rather than getting to the point. The amount of times I thought “put down the thesaurus and step away” while reading was innumerable. That said, the last 30% took this from a 3 star read to a 4 star read. WOW.

Reflections on trauma, race, father-son relationships, and family obligations. And as should be obvious from the title of this book, there is animal death and violence depicted in this book.

TLDR: Worth the read if you can withstand some overzealous prose.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review. Available 08/20/2024!

A family drama that masterfully blends American Gothic with Chinese mythology. The book's rich, detailed writing is one of its strong points. I found myself stopping frequently to allow Pedersen's exquisite stylistic work to really soak in. I cherished the thorough exploration of folklore and the catharsis at the conclusion. It was intriguing to observe how the mythology around foxes were intertwined because they are significant figures in both Chinese and American folklore.

What a fascinating book. I love how the author approached the book by breaking in up into chapters of “Then” and “Now”. The past and the present pacing was fluid and I was invested to learn what was going to happen next. That unnerving built up to the end was delightful and it was satisfying to watch everything come crashing down on the Marrow family. My one complaint is that this book is too long for what actually occurs. A shorter book (novella?? Is that the word) would have delivered a more staggering blow. Overall a very good book and I look forward to see what else the author will publish.

This haunting novel was inspired by Kailee Pedersen's own journey as an adoptee from Nanning, China. Pedersen was adopted in 1996 and grew up on a farm in Nebraska, and seemlessly weaves together her expereince ancient Chinese mythology.

Nick Morrow has left rural Nebraska forever. When his dying father demands that he return he is unsure and only decides to respond upon hearing his estranged brother and his non-caucasion wife will be present. Nick has held a torch for his brother's wife Emilia and immediately it seems reciprocated. As this sinister and haunting novel explore more and more of the deaths and slayings of animals in the wild, it is clear that something truly terrible is bound to happen. Rural gothic ? Slow burning? Very claustrophobic and pure art in the flow of the story. The reader won't expect what happens and much like a hunted animal, it will be far too late at the end.

If you like a horror novel happening in the light of day, this is a stellar novel for you!
#sacrificialanimals #kaileepedersen #stmartins

A tale of a family crumbling beneath the weight of masculinity and cruelty told in a raw and decadent prose. Going between the past and present, we learn about Nick Morrow's childhood growing up at Stag Crossing under the fist of his father, Carlyle, and in the shadow of his brother, Joshua. In the present, we learn the repercussions of that childhood built on violence, brutality and gore.

The supernatural/horror element is what really elevated this story for me. Emilia, Joshua's wife, is based on the nine-tail fox originating in Chinese mythology and enacts the final judgement of the Morrow family. There are a lot of really great comparisons to make between the original myth and the one Peterson writes, most notably the fall of the Shang dynasty with the fall of the Morrow dynasty, but the one most interesting to me is between Emilia and the mother fox that plagues Nick's childhood conscience. Both "foxes" create riffs in the Morrow family relationships and challenge Nick to reject the brutality his father raised him on while also acknowledging the damage his father wreaks, tying Nick's past to his present exceptionally well. They both slip into the cracks of the Morrow family relationships and eventually, enact revenge with a cunning and equally brutal hand.

I was lucky enough to win an e-ARC of SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS by Kailee Pedersen from a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe and happy holiday weekend!