The Taking of Jake Livingston – Ryan Douglass
Expectation: A “Wednesday” meets “The Sixth Sense” gay horror-romance set in suburban Atlanta.
Reality: The subject matter was darker than expected — a plus — but the execution faltered near the end.
My Take:
With a premise that’s a mixture of “Insidious,” “Final Destination” and “Fear Street” films, I had high hopes for Ryan Douglass’ take on queer, Black horror.
While “The Taking of Jake Livingston” nailed the macabre premise — the namesake of the novel can see spirits and one needs to inhabit his body to enact spectral revenge — it faltered with scattershot action sequences, undercooked romance and a flat last third.
Still, Douglass showed a lot of creativity with this quick read, a script-flipping young adult novel that doubled down on darker, timely topics. It’s not every day a writer can make you empathize with a school shooter, but he succeeded.
The focus on gun violence and America’s epidemic of angry young white men was organically woven into the plot, but I was bothered that the primary villain is a mentally ill, abused gay kid. While published a few years ago, the far right’s obsession with the gender and sexual identities of mass shooters has not made this age well.
That element aside — and I cannot understate that it is a big element since there are alternating POVs between Jake and the dead killer, Sawyer — I was intrigued by Douglass’ dissection of societal fear, blame and lack of accountability.
These are heady topics for genre fare, and it helped elevate a story that I otherwise would’ve found spiritless (pun intended).
The action scenes read like the recap of a first-person video game, as in each followed a clear path without much deviation. The characterizations outside of Jake and Sawyer were stock for YA literature, and the foray into magical realism was a left turn. Not to mention that [spoiler alert] Jake killed a man, burned his house down and crashed a car BUT NO ONE TALKED ABOUT IT.
Criticisms aside, I tore through this in two long reading sessions, because I was intrigued by the premise and curious to see how it would play out. Was I disappointed? A little. Would I read another novel by Douglass? Absolutely.
Narrated by two audiobook all-stars, Kevin R. Free and Michael Crouch gave full commitment to the material. Free was great as Jake but had some awkward characterizations (especially Fiona) that were distracting. Crouch, on the other hand, turned in another disaffected, tortured soul performance as Sawyer; it was subtle and heartbreaking.
Rating (story): 3/5 stars
Rating (narration): 3/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: February 11 – February 13, 2024
Multi-tasking: Good to go. While the action sequences are a little difficult to follow, this doesn’t require a lot of concentration.
