In reading the description for this book I was prepared for a dark book. I was not prepared enough. This book does not care about your feelings but is worth reading every page of it for a very interesting and important dark nihilistic tale.

“…the American way, as American as Mickey Mouse or food stamps you can’t buy hot food with.”

Yeehaw Junction is a tenacious, nihilistic story that is hard to stomach; it's impossible not to flinch while reading this, but it's also impossible to put down. Kayli Scholz gives us insight into a world that is forsaken—the underbelly of America's south. Yeehaw Junction (a real town in fact!) is a place of desolation and shows the palpable neglect of the poorest of the poor.

Skeet, a 12-year-old boy, lives with his foster mother Trudy and a cast of misfits, including Skeet's best friend Cricket, a 43-year-old abuse survivor who believes she has been pregnant for over 20 years. Skeet and Cricket spend their time selling jars of DDT soil to tourists and trying to survive boredom and the Florida heat, while keeping away from the cops and filming abhorrent behavior for purchase.

I really enjoyed the breaks in the narrative with interviews, Florida history, and police reports. The story propels you forward whether you like it or not. While at times bordering on the absurd, Skeet manages to pull you along on this crazy adventure.

This book is nihilism in a nutshell. Nothing in this town is sacred, all bets are off, and when a local child is kidnapped, the hunt for the missing child is on. I mean...there's quite the reward for Kidnapped Heather!

Hope 4 Heather!

an unrelentingly dark, oppressively bleak, and deeply unsettling novel with a delightful, zine-esque cover, yeehaw junction is a brilliantly written deep dive into the darkest parts of america told from the wildly vivid voice of twelve year-old skeet, a boy with an unquenchable thirst for violence. jumping between skeet's narrative, youtube transcripts, and police interviews, kayli scholz tells the story of skeet, his rotten family, their involvement in a local child abduction case, and the upsetting foundations of all their lives. at once a crime story, a southern gothic, and a coming-of-age story, yeehaw junction is raw, atmospheric, and will leave you reeling after its unforgettable last pages, where one could be forgiven for believing that all of this might have actually happened. for those of you who want your fiction horrifying, miserable, and impossible to put down, i can't recommend this enough.

an unrelentingly dark, oppressively bleak, and deeply unsettling novel with a delightful, zine-esque cover, yeehaw junction is a brilliantly written deep dive into the darkest parts of america told from the wildly vivid voice of twelve year-old skeet, a boy with an unquenchable thirst for violence. jumping between skeet's narrative, youtube transcripts, and police interviews, kayli scholz tells the story of skeet, his rotten family, their involvement in a local child abduction case, and the upsetting foundations of all their lives. at once a crime story, a southern gothic, and a coming-of-age story, yeehaw junction is raw, atmospheric, and will leave you reeling after its unforgettable last pages, where one could be forgiven for believing that all of this might have actually happened. for those of you who want your fiction horrifying, miserable, and impossible to put down, i can't recommend this enough.

Kayli Scholz does an amazing job in writing this horror novel, it had a tension that I was looking for and was enjoying the imagery of this book. It was everything that I was wanting and enjoyed in this type of book and glad I got to read this. The characters were so well written and worked in this universe. Kayli Scholz wrote this well and had that noir elmeent that I was hoping for.

Yeehaw Junction is a Sourhern Gothic based in the late 90’s in Florida and brings that dark grit of the 90’s. I was first intrigued by the title, then the cover and finally the description. In between the story telling are transcripts of police interviews, 911 calls and YouTube clips. Kayli Schulz writing is atmospheric and visceral, I was often feeling the elements and descriptions throughout the story. This bleak and unsettling book is a fast read, couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting, but left with that ‘what did I just read?’ feeling, wanting a bit more but realized where it ended was right for the story. This one will stick with me for awhile.

True Review: 4.5 Stars

I’m still reeling from this book an hour after I finished it and I assume I will be for the next few weeks at least. Before reading this, I was a firm believer in the idea that there is not a single piece of media that similarly captures the heart and grit of my favorite movie, Gummo. This book proved me wrong. This book captures the spirit of Harmony Korine’s masterpiece perfectly.
Scholz’s incredible talent was on full display for this gut-wrenching novel. I picked it up and didn’t put it down until it was over. The way the chapters are presented- with oscillation between media content, interviews, and narrative, while skipping through the timeline was a brilliant way of allowing you to put pieces together while also providing pieces of foreshadowing that felt necessary to furthering the plot. More than once, I found myself searching the character’s names on Google to find news articles about them because their stories felt so real. The storytelling was compelling, cohesive, and an all-around dreadful and disturbing delight to read. This book is forever burned into my brain and will be a frequent recommendation to anyone who loves a well-written, twisted, and morally complex adventure.

Thank you to Kayli Scholz and NetGalley for the ARC copy of this book to review.

This book follows Skeet and his complicated 'chosen' family through sketchy, unethical methods and crimes to make money, a suspected kidnapping of a loved girl in the community, and a biohazardous environment where sanity and safety is questioned.

I don’t know what I expected with this book but it exceeded all expectations!! Scholz’ creation of atmosphere and in-depth characters is unlike any other.
The pace of the story, character development, and variety of chapter content created a unique method of storytelling. In my own reading habits I've come to enjoy books that have 'multimedia' aspects, the use of police and video transcripts helped to break up the story whilst foreshadowing fundamental parts of the plot. Additionally, the last chapter was a different, yet beautiful, way of summarising the book, it left me feeling content with the story as a whole.
I have nothing but praise for this book, it’s incredibly gory, morose, and complicated. Even without any previous understanding of Southern US culture, I felt like I was wholly involved in the book.

I really enjoyed this. Not only was it beautifully atmospheric, but it also had a very strong sense of place. While in the beginning I was shocked to find out that Skeet was only 12 because his narrative voice was very mature, I do think that speaks to how difficult living situations force kids to grow up and become very skeptical of the world and others at a young age. I also liked how I was never quite sure whether Skeet was being manipulated by those around him, showing how despite his actions and words, he really was just a kid who wasn’t being protected in the way he needed to be. The more information based sections were cool for giving more objective facts against Skeet’s subjective worldview which was missing a lot of greater context, as well as foreshadowing.. The Survivors Day gun becoming a physical barrier between Skeet and the connection he craves to other people while allowing him an easy link to his intrinsic violence is a really cool metaphor for how American gun culture seperate vulnerable people from emotional regulation and leads to violent crime. Overall this was a really interesting picture of how both people and institutions fail to protect the poor and children, and how crime is able to take place due to the failings of many people, not just perpetrators.

The blurb alone caught my eye—it’s not often you see a life goal most people wouldn’t dream of aspiring to as adults. Told through Skeet’s perspective, the story follows the disappearance of a young girl. As well as the life of the family members, and just how things can deteriorate quickly, despite what someone tries to do to hold everyone together.

The introductions of the family members capture a bleak reality, showing how lives can slip through the cracks of the asphalt in a place you might simply pass through—much like the saying, “They can’t see the forest for the trees.”I also enjoyed the use of 911 calls and investigation transcripts, along with snippets from a YouTube channel. These added depth and realism, bringing the events—and their aftermath—to life.

It's an unsettling read that turned into a one more page situation for me while reading it. The ending left me wanting more, but I think it was best for it to end the way it did.

There is a lot going on in this book. The back and forth and the build up to things that don’t happen is a real let down. The kids in the story are great examples of Stockholm syndrome, but from the beginning Skeet talks about his dream of being a school shooter. The whole book is a lead up to it never happening.

When a book opens with a quote by Aileen Wuornos, you know it's going to be good. Reading this felt like being in the backseat of a beat-up pickup going way too fast down a country road, no seatbelt, holding on for dear life, knowing something terrible is going to happen any second. But at the same time, there's that pulse of adrenaline, that excitement when you're doing something you shouldn't. This story left grit between my teeth and felt unbearably, brutally honest about the darkest corners of our society, where all of the dirt bags gather, left to their own lurid devices.

What a bleak, nihilistic story. Yeehaw Junction follows Skeet, a 12 year old boy who aspires to be a school shooter. He was found by Trudy, a 50-something year old woman, and joined her crew. Trudy is the guardian of Skeet, Cricket (43), Macon (17), Jenna (16), and Bam Bam (6). Together, they make snuff-life sinister homemade videos to sell. They steal and will do anything to survive. When 11 year old Heather turns up missing, the family joins the search party to find her and the story starts to unravel.

They story was not what I expected. It started with Skeet saying he wants to be a school shooter when he grows up. The whole time I was reading, I was waiting for a school shooting scene to happen. While I enjoy bleak stories, I found this one a little hard to follow. I kept getting the characters confused, but that could just be me. I did enjoy the chapters with the 911 transcript, police interrogation transcripts, documentary and video transcripts, reports, and patient records. It made the story a little more immersive. Overall, a quick gory read filled with misery and violence.

Thank you, NetGalley and Moonstruck Books, for the ARC.

YEEHAW JUNCTION by Kayli Scholz is a book like no other. This Florida Gothic novel perfectly describes those small, in between towns off highways where anything goes and things are lost in the asphalt cracks of decay. It will disturb you and linger with your conscience long after you finish reading. Scholz masters the voice and description of Skeet and his rotten world. I’ve driven through Yeehaw Junction a few times and grew up near a pocket sized Florida town, and the descriptions are spot on. I love the inclusion of police interviews and YouTube transcripts to help tell this dark narrative. I was reminded of the tragedy of Demon Copperhead, the bleakness of The Destructors, and the grittiness of the film Gummo.