“To grieve is to rot from the inside out,” (Pedersen).

Estranged from his family for twenty-years, Nick Morrow returns to Stag Crossing, his family’s farmhouse in rural Nebraska, after receiving a call from his abusive father telling him he’s dying. But Nick isn’t the only one invited back, his older brother Joshua and wife Emilia are also welcome back after Joshua was exiled out of the family for marrying an Asian woman. But tensions are high between the Morrows as they return to their homestead, and as Nick comes to term with his past he also becomes familiar with Emilia in dangerously frightening ways.

I’d heard a lot of great things about Sacrificial Animals on Goodreads, and yes I was lured in by the description. I was shocked and thrilled when I got the email from NetGalley that I was given early access, and once again I was fooled.

Let’s start with the good, I guess, the novel is incredibly atmospheric. It feels almost Gothic in parts and I loved the tension that Pedersen created, as well as the visuals around Stag Crossing, the farm, and the town. Pedersen created an incredible tension and uneasiness throughout the novel and it was very easy to visualize the setting where the story was taking place. Pedersen is an excellent writer, and it would be interesting to see what she writes in the future.

And now the not so good. Sacrificial Animals just drags, it’s boring. Told between “Then” (twenty years before) and “Now” the novel just sort of trudges along with it’s atmospheric setting with the hope that readers will stay just for that. And it works, for a little bit, but there really is such little progression until the last few chapters where everything happens all at once, and by that point the novel becomes predictable. The original summary I read mentioned Nick’s sexuality and his affair with Emilia, but both of these don’t occur until halfway through the novel making their inclusion in the summary a bit bizarre. The novel takes so long creating tension, sprinkling hints about the fox that’s terrorizing the chicken’s at Stag’s Crossing and the difficulty of catching it that I wanted a resolution much sooner than it was given. I also have an issue with some of the word choices, like anodyne three times by chapter five and mien four times overall, which is too often for such uncommon words.

This would have been an amazing short story or novella. If the tension and plot had been more concentrated Pedersen could have successfully made the point and garnered the feeling she was hoping with her debut. As it is, Sacrificial Animals is rambling and repetitive. Pedersen does have talent as a writer though and I hope reader’s will get to enjoy that with her next book.

So many things did not work for me when it comes to this book. The prose and sentence structure was so over the top. It kept taking me out of the story. There were no quotations for dialogue. The animal abuse/hunting scenes were too much for me.

I would say that this book felt more like a literary fiction story and family drama for much of the book. We go back and forth in time following Nick through his youth and in the present day. The relationship with Nick’s father and his own questioning of the life his father is pushing him to lead is complicated and well defined. The horror does come in later in the book, but I personally would have liked that to come in sooner.

This was a really interesting read and a quick audiobook to consume as well. I think if you go in expecting a slower story and more of a character driven book, this is one you may enjoy!

SACRIFICIAL ANIMALS by Kailee Pederson. Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher, @macmillanaudio for the audio-ARC.

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Nick's old, abusive, curmudgeon of a father has invited him and his older brother Joshua, including his wife, Amelia back to Stagg's Crossing where they grew up. His father Carlisle is dying and though he has barely spoken to his boys for years, he seems to be itching for a reunion. Nick treads lightly assuming a trick or deceit from his father who has played games with them his whole life, when the real deceit has been lurking in the shadow for decades.

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This book was just ok for me. I kept going back and forth as to whether I was enjoying it. I appreciate the sentiment/message of this story but it was REALLY slow and almost too nuanced for me- while I generally enjoy this specific folklore trickster trope, it was not even apparent where the story was going for much of the book. I wanted a little more uncanniness or action but didn't really get that until the last couple of hours of the audiobook.

If I hadn't read the synopsis, I would have thought that this was a contemporary novel following a dysfunctional family and perhaps I would have enjoyed it more, but they had to say that it was supernatural horror with Chinese folklore and well, that's what I expected from the beginning of the book. I was very wrong.

Even though my expectation prevented me from enjoying much of the book, it has good points: the narrative is descriptive and, although at times it feels heavy, there are some phrases and thoughts from the characters that seemed intelligent and thoughtful. I found Nick's psychological construction remarkable, but other than that, no other character shined. Josh was the archetypal golden boy and firstborn, and Carlyle the racist patriarch who I can only focus on living through his firstborn.

The parable of the prodigal son comes into play and mixes with the revenge story that, I must say, I saw coming from halfway through the book. The truth is, by the time I got to the climax, I was already so disappointed and wishing for it all to be over that when the horror set in, it didn't even seem worth the 280-page wait.

I love horror stories built on cultural folklore, and Sacrificial Animals seemed right up my alley. As a debut author, I was additionally intrigued by the author's background and how her perspective would drive the creation of her story. I do think she wrote what was close to her heart... growing up on a farm in Nebraska, her LBGTQ+ experiences, her Asian ancestry, and her academic love for literature. I appreciated her weaving of these themes within her story. Unfortunately, for me, I found the writing style to be too academic. I consider myself an intelligent reader. I have a doctorate degree, and I love reading to learn and building my vocabulary. I don't mind looking up a word here or there or a historical or geographical reference, but at least in the first 50% of the book, the flagrant use of 50-cent (probably $5 with inflation) words multiple times per page was distracting and even came off as condescending at times. They were easy to look up on my Kindle, but had I been reading a physical book, it would have been much more than a mild annoyance due to the interruption in reading flow. The average American reader would likely be alienated and probably would succumb to the dreaded DNF. Much of her prose is in fact quite beautiful, but it takes a certain type of reader and the right mood to appreciate it. It seemed like the prevalence of these words dropped off in the second half, but the tone had already been set, and I did not connect with the story as much as I would have liked.

I must say, though, that this book cover is one of the most captivating I have seen in a while. It definitely reflects the mood and mystery of the story.

Actual rating 2.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Whoa. I tend not to read the description of an ARC, so I was a little surprised with the last bit of this book took one heck of a turn. I was cruising right along in what I thought was a domestic thriller-type read and then we did a 180 into supernatural horror.
Carlyle is a widower with two sons. His wife and third son died in childbirth. He is not a good human being. Joseph is the older son and heir to the estate and Nick is the younger and not really worth Carlyle's time. This book is centered around these three characters and goes back and forth between then (their horrific childhood) and now (men in their 40s). The descriptions in the book are, well, descriptive. There's lots of flowery language and words that I had to stop to look up. It was distracting enough to be annoying. I know we know big words, but they're sprinkled quite liberally throughout the book. Sentence structure was good, but lack of punctuation was also distracting. I got used to the lack of quotation marks, but lack of commas had me rereading sentences to figure out what they were trying to impart.
Pay attention to the fox references.

Well that was tough. Maybe if it was a novella I could have worked my way through the book. But it’s not and the flowery writing style was just too much for me. It was too hard to get through and I found myself nearly forcing myself to try to get through it. I ended up giving around 10% of the book and decided to just tap out.

From what I gathered from the book description I feel like I don’t even really need to read it. If I ever decide to look up spoilers I’m sure my assumptions gathered from the description will be correct.

Unfortunately this just wasn’t for me which is disappointing because I was actually excited to read this.

The synopsis looked really promising but the way it's written was impossible to get into. There is no way to tell someone is speaking until you're part way through the sentence. The lack of " turned me right off of trying to get into the story.

I often see a meme going around about how story ideas don't start with a plotline or a character, they start with an interesting image and vibes. Unfortunately this book ended up taking awhile getting to the plotline or character parts, and in fact maybe never even quite got to the character parts as the MCs were so one note and basically unchanging throughout. The eeeeevil father. The dickish golden child big brother. The...sorry, but...femme fatale. And all this anchored by our narrator Nick, cursed to inhabit the contemporary lit archetype of the aimless queer millennial who doesn't care about their job, can't keep a boyfriend/girlfriend, makes dumb sex decisions, and is haunted by small town childhood trauma.

Which - you know, listen. Me too, tbh. You hate to take a look in the mirror and be like lmao yikes. But it is exhausting enough to be this person without spending hundreds of pages hanging out with another humorless man who stupidly continues to engage with his garbage family even as you're reminded as the reader with every alternating chapter taking place in the past that this is the absolute last place this guy should be, there's nothing for him there, please get some self-respect, etc. It's like watching a horror movie where you're yelling "Noooo! Don't go into the room where the killer is obviously hiding!!!" at the protagonist except instead of the scene being over when they're murdered in thirty seconds this book lasts 304 pages and nobody ever learns anything.

I almost DNFed this but a couple of good reviews swayed me to keep going. I don't HATE that I read it all, because there were some interesting things happening here (the vibes, actually, were communicated very well), but I can't say I'd recommend this one.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

I started this book and had to set it down as I was not into the writing. I felt I was working too hard to enjoy the book. That being said, I picked it back up and really became immersed in the story of a father and his two sons, the then and now, of the bullying abuse by a father and the rivalry between two brothers.
The story is told by Nick the youngest of the two brothers. He has always felt less than often wishing he could just disappear. Reminding his father of the wife he loved and lost during childbirth of the last son, Nick has been tormented his entire life by his dad, Carlyle, an extremely racist, misogynistic, homophobic man. He had no capacity for kindness. He was cruel to the point of being abusive, his words like daggers.
This is a slow burn and dubbed as mythology, which occurs at the end. There is always mention of a female fox throughout the story and the end pulls everything together
The prose were eloquently written and smart. The author has a way with words that paint intricate pictures. However, I felt I had to refer to my thesaurus for uncommon words that took away from the story.; such as, “always taking what was not his, the indefatigable magpie of his childhood”.
This is more atmospheric horror. Lots of animal abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse.
At times confusing, such as; the author was talking about building their new house on a 1,000 acre parcel in Nebraska, calling it Stags Crossing prior to the birth of their first son. In the next paragraph, the father and two sons are hunting deer. There is no correlation between the two and its years apart from each other.

All and all, I did like the writing style, minus the overuse of uncommon words. I took off one star for that. Otherwise, for me, it was a good yarn

A lyrical and violent story, Kailee Pedersen stitches together past and present to bring to life a heart-stopping story of choice and consequence and what happens when power goes unchecked.

Sacrificial Animals is one of those very difficult to describe books that I find myself reading periodically. It falls into the horror genre, but isn't terribly frightening. Instead, I was deeply unsettled reading this novel, waiting for it to become terrifying, and wanting to warn Joshua and Nick to leave and not look back.

The plot has some aspects that are triggering for some--an abusive, bullying father and animal cruelty play a big role in the story. I am not sure I fully understood the purpose of the dual timeline, though it gave insight into the trauma inflicted on Nick in his childhood.

The writing and feel of the book reminded me of books by Andy Marino that I have read in the last few years. Sacrificial Animals is more creepy and unsettling than it is scary. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital copy of Sacrificial Animals by Kailee Pedersen. The opinions in this review are my own.

This is a strange story, but, in my opinion, many horror stories are. Chapters alternating between Then and Now are expertly woven together to tell about the lives of Nick, Joshua and their dad, Carlyle. It is definitely a slow build with a lot of disturbing themes. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

DNF at 12%. This writing and the style choices are not for me. I can’t get into this one even though it sounds really interesting.

This is a slow burn ominous tale of one family unravelling. Nick receives an invitation to return home to the family farm because his abusive father is dying. Nick reaches out to his disowned brother, Joshua, to try and get him to return home to say goodbye. Joshua was always the favorite brother but when he first brought his wife to meet his family his father became irate and disowned Joshua for bringing an outsider to their farm. Emilia is Joshua’s wife and the wedge that separated the three men from each other’s lives. Hoping to put the past behind them, they all meet on the farm for reconciliation and to say goodbye. Joshua and his father quickly resumed their old bond, leaving Nick and Emilia alone for hours and hours every day. Nick’s old feelings for Emilia resurface and they develop a closeness that becomes romantic. While reflecting on his life Nick begins to feel a sinister presence at the farm that may have been there all along, that threatens to destroy everything he ever thought was real. I honestly thought this book would be scarier than it was, but overall, I was not disappointed in this read. The flashbacks to his past and his father’s generally weird behavior make this feel more like a coming-of-age tale with sinister undertones. The prose has a lucid feeling which gives this entire book a dreamlike quality, but nothing much happens until the last ¼ of the book. The folklore elements of the book are not really developed much throughout the story but being familiar with Chinese mythological creatures I was able to see what was happening between the lines. This is a quick read that delivers a sinister lit-fic story.

DNF @ 10%. Unfortunately I could not get into this book and at this time have decided to put it aside.

This is a very engrossing story. I kept me in its grasp from the beginning until the very last word. Carlyle, Joshua, and Nick living their lives at Stag Crossing. Tormented by Carlyle the two sons grow into men and leave as fast as they can. Joshua marries Emilia and very striking Asian woman who is very mysterious. She has grabbed the attention of Nick, he can’t seem to not think of her.

This strange mixture living in this house on the middle of nowhere.

This was a very interesting read and would recommend this book

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this advanced readers copy. This is my honest opinion.

I would like to extend my thanks for the advanced copy of "Sacrificial Animals" by Kailee Pedersen in exchange for my honest review. Unfortunately, I must admit that this book did not resonate with me.

The narrative unfolds at a pace that I found to be excessively slow, which made it challenging to stay engaged. As I progressed through the chapters, I felt that the story lacked significant developments or events that would propel the plot forward. This left me yearning for more action and depth, ultimately leading to a sense of stagnation.

While I appreciate the effort and creativity that went into the writing, "Sacrificial Animals" simply wasn't the right fit for my reading preferences. I believe that some readers may appreciate its contemplative nature, but for me, it fell short of delivering a compelling experience.

I love a good redemption story & this one delivered! We follow Nick in the present where he's visiting his terminally ill father, Carlyle, & in the past where we see the abuse he suffered at the hands of his his dad. Nick's brother Joshua also visits with his Asian wife, Emilia. This was dark with horrific animal abuse shown on page. Some of my favorite stories have a person seeking revenge for being wronged & the ending was wrapped up perfectly.