The Taking of Jake Livingston
by Ryan DouglassPublished by: Putnam on July 13, 2021
Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Paranormal
Pages: 308
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Get Out meets Danielle Vega in this YA horror where survival is not a guarantee.
Jake Livingston is one of the only Black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about ghosts and the rules to life itself go out the window as Sawyer begins haunting him and bodies turn up in his neighborhood. High school soon becomes a survival game–one Jake is not sure he’s going to win.
Content Tags:
Perfect for readers who want:
- Creepy horror that will give you goosebumps.
- A unique paranormal setting with lots to be discovered.
- Lots of social commentary about mental health and race.
- A sweet queer romance.
- Coming of age.
Many thanks to Putnam and TBR and Beyond Tours for a copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book for so long now! The moment I saw that cover, I knew it was going to be perfect for me. I’ve been in the mood for all sorts of spooky vibes, and this book really delivers on that!
The Taking of Jake Livingston is the sort of paranormal horror that will burrow deep in your bones and thoroughly creep you out . . . while also tackling some really big social issues like mental health and coming out.
There were parts of the book that I really wanted fleshed out more, including Jake’s character. All in all, though, I sat down one afternoon and finished this book before bedtime. It just dragged me in and pulled me along! Douglass creates a really compelling atmosphere that gave me just the chills I was hoping for. Plus, Jake’s coming of age story and character arc is a good one!
This book is not for the faint of heart. Douglass creates a dark, compelling horror that will give you goosebumps in all the right ways.
I absolutely love the way Douglass handles the horror of this book. His paranormal elements are creative and unique. Gory, but not over-the-top gory. Definitely enough to up the stakes and make the reader worry for all the characters, especially Jake. I’m used to dark fantasy, where I would usually say I’d be fine living in that world. Here, though? Douglass’ paranormal hellscape is definitely not one I’d want to mess with, but boy did I have fun reading about it.
This is one I’d probably not recommend reading in the dark if you’re a baby like me. It deals with two realms: the living and the dead. The dead realm is mostly filled with ghosts stuck in a death loop, reliving their last moments (which is already a daunting idea, if I’m honest). However, things are even more spooky when a ghost manages to break the mold.
Sawyer’s face looks at me from the sketchpad. I may have made the eyes so dark they’re all-seeing and catch you wherever you are. I’m only good at drawing the bad things.
Buried in the narrative is a scathing criticism of the way mental health is handled in this country and how it fails people who need help the most.
The Taking of Jake Livingston is told from two points of view: Jake’s and Sawyer’s. Sawyer was a teen who took his own life . . . but not before shooting up his local school and taking a number of his classmates with him. His point of view is told mostly through journal entries.
Now, I realize this can get really squicky easily because of the subject matter. However, I thought Douglass handled the issue well. He doesn’t apologize for Sawyer’s behavior or try to excuse it in any way. At no point is Sawyer anything but a villain. Still, even the worst villains have backstories, right? I appreciated the way Douglass presented a look into Sawyer’s thoughts and actions leading up to his final moments. There was no excusing his behavior, but there were blatant red flags. You know, the sort that goes entirely ignored by a system that was specifically designed to catch them.
If I could’ve been honest, I’d have told him, “My one hope for the school year is that everyone else survives.” He’d have found it alarming, so I didn’t write anything down.
Jake is a mostly likable character who I think will be extremely relatable to any teen who has felt like an outsider or like they just can’t find where they fit.
Which, I would warrant a guess, is a lot of teens. It’s a weird age filled with hormones and not fitting in, for the most part. At least, my teenhood was, which meant there was a lot I had in common with Jake.
Jake suffers from feeling “other” an awful lot, and that’s an understandable thing. He’s one of the only Black people in his school. He’s secretly gay and neither ready nor willing to be out. Jake’s also not very good at making friends and feels like no one understands him (which is a very teen feeling, but not one that’s exclusive to teens, either). Oh, and then there’s this little, teensy thing about him being haunted by a malevolent spirit, like a spooky evil cherry on top.
Jake also gets a really well done character arc and coming of age story that I thought was very satisfying. There are definitely things about Jake’s character that annoyed me in the beginning, but thankfully, Jake learns from some of them. It’s nice to see him grow and become more comfortable with who he is. In many ways, he’s a foil for Sawyer. If things had gone slightly differently in his life, there’s every possibility he may have turned out very differently. He definitely ends up at a crossroads in this book and needs to decide the sort of person he wants to become.
Douglass tackles some big social issues, such as race and coming out.
If you think your horror stories can’t have a deeper narrative, think again! True to real life, Jake isn’t just a medium. He also happens to be one of the only Black kids at his school as well as coming to grips with his identity as a queer Black man. He’s got a lot going on at this point in his life.
Douglass doesn’t shy away from the hard but accurate truths of the situation. Jake faces many microaggressions at his school, and I enjoy the way the narrative shows his reactions and the way it wears down on him. Oof, it hits in the relatable feels right there. Then add to that being a queer Black man, which is an additional layer to an already complicated existence. That’s something I don’t have experience with (though the author does!), so it was enlightening having the chance to read Jake’s thoughts and experiences around that.
“Probably the fried chicken burger.”
Allister snickers mid-sip and catches the falling water in his hand. “I was in the middle of a sip, you bitch.” He yanks a napkin from its dispenser and wipes away his sparkle of saliva and ice water, “I want my Kool-Aid in a wineglass, or else.”
“Or else you’ll lay everybody the fuck out.” I’m laughing through the words.
“Period. Every last one.”
Douglass ambitiously tries to tackle so many hot-button issues at once, but it sometimes left me feeling like there were things that needed a little more fleshing out.
One big thing, for example, is the spiritual realm and the rules that govern Jake’s ability. It’s a pretty cool (and extremely creepy) ability to see ghosts, but it’s also more than that. The reader gets to learn along with Jake as he discovers more aspects of his gift, things he hadn’t known about. It didn’t feel like these discoveries were explored at all, though. More like, “Cool, that’s a thing,” and then we move on. Douglass does such a great job creating a unique and captivating paranormal environment that I just wanted to live in it a little bit more!
There were times where Jake’s character development fell rather flat for me, too. I loved his arc and progression as he discovered himself and learned to just be around other people. I was glad about the discussion of toxic friends, but a little disappointed that Jake never comes to the realization that he was a pretty craptastic friend, too. These were really little moments in the story, but they irked me (because I’m me and I’m very irkable).
There were also times when it felt like Jake was trying to stand up for himself, but in sort of weird ways. Like a scene that’s meant to be a microaggression where Jake’s wearing a sweatshirt and the teacher tells him it isn’t hot and Jake makes it a race thing. I’d never heard the idea that Blacks aren’t built for cold weather before, but according to my Google research, it’s a thing that’s said in the Black community? I don’t know, but I couldn’t find any particular science to back that up. It hasn’t been my experience, personally.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m cold aaaall the time, but it’s because I’ve had anemia pretty much since I hit puberty. But so did my (very) white mother, aunt, and grandmother, so we’re all in the same frigid boat. There are lots of completely valid microaggressions that Blacks go through (and several more brought up in this book) that this one just jumped out at me as falling completely flat and making Jake sound like an utter jerk when he didn’t need to.
“It is to me. I’m African American, ma’am. My homeostasis is not built for cold weather. So I feel it even though you guys don’t.”
A round of laughter follows. A few “whats?” I don’t mind the attention. All I’m doing is telling the truth—I get colder because I’m Black. It’s not that hard to understand.
About Ryan Douglass
Ryan Douglass is an author, poet, and freelance writer from Atlanta, Georgia. His work on race, literacy, sexuality, and media representation has appeared in The Huffington Post, Atlanta Black Star, Everyday Feminism, Nerdy POC, Age of Awareness, LGBTQNation, and Medium, among others.
His debut novel, THE TAKING OF JAKE LIVINGSTON, is a YA horror out through Penguin/Putnam July 13th, 2021.
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I love the sound of this one!
Great review, Sammie! I enjoyed this book as well. I was so pleasantly surprised by how creepy and gorey it got (cover gave me Goosebumps vibes, which never really WENT THERE) and the social commentary was important. I do agree that Jake’s character growth was a little lacking, but with horror I generally don’t mind? So that niggle may be from the book doing ALL THE THINGS!
Kal @ Reader Voracious recently posted…Review: For the Wolf (Wilderwood #1) by Hannah Whitten
I think this would definitely be a great follow-on for middle grade readers who loved Goosebumps (I did at that age, too!). I was a little surprised by how gory it was, but it does the whole spooky thing so well haha.