Book Review: “Jackal” by Erin E. Adams

Apr 20

Håfa adai and welcome to spooky season, my favorite month of the year! Throughout October 2025, I will publish reviews for works of horror, suspense, and the supernatural. My third pick for spooky season is Jackal, by Erin E. Adams.

This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.

Click on the tags at the bottom of this post to see all reviews with the same tags in the Horror bookshelf.

Spoiler-Free Plot Summary

Liz Rocher has spent years building a life of ambition for herself in New York City, far from her hometown in the Rust Belt of the Appalachia Mountains. So, when she takes a train ride from the city to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, she only intends on staying for 48 hours for her best friend’s wedding. But what was supposed to be a quick and simple weekend is tossed aside when her best friend’s daughter—her goddaughter—goes missing before the end of the wedding.

The search for her goddaughter forces Liz to confront one of the most reinforced rules of Appalachia:

If you saw something; no, you did not.

If you heard something; no, you did not.

If you felt something; no, you did not.

But Liz did see something, hear something, feel something many years ago when another young girl vanished in an eerily similar manner. And the more Liz pushes against the rules of Appalachia, the more she realizes that the mountain and its people prefer to keep certain things left in the dark.

Important Trigger Warning for Jackal

Jackal both implies and depicts acts of physical assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, murder, and gore, especially of children. Chapter 15 goes into graphic detail about a domestic violence event. These themes and scenes are essential to the plot. If these are themes that cause you distress or discomfort in any way, then please take steps to prepare and protect yourself before and after reading this book.

My Thoughts on Jackal: 4.5 stars

Set in the Appalachian community of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Jackal takes the reader through the very different worlds that Liz Rocher must navigate when she visits home from New York City. Told from the first-person perspective of Liz Rocher—with several chapters narrated by the perpetrator while reminiscing about past victims—this story explores the harm caused by keeping secrets, the weaponization and erasure of history, and the malevolence of covert racism in a modern-day remote mountain town.

After the opening chapter detailing the first acknowledged disappearance of a young girl in Johnstown, the majority of the story follows the perspective and experience of Liz Rocher. Liz has carried many misbeliefs and anxieties with her from childhood to adulthood. With a mother who was loving yet critical—who deems a grade of A- as being no different than an F—Liz has developed a fiercely independent and ambitious “Type A” personality. But in the process of trying to meet her mother’s definition of excellence, Liz has also developed a highly secretive and avoidant way of interacting with anyone who is not her best friend.

But Liz’s mother, a first-generation Haitian immigrant to the United States, is not the only one who expects nothing short of excellence from Liz. Much of what Liz experiences as one of the few Black individuals in her generation in her small town is vastly different from what her White peers experience, including her childhood best friend. And as the story unfolds, the ways in which the majority of Johnstown perceives the minority is far more insidious and malignant than Liz could have ever anticipated.

There is truly only one aspect of Erin E. Adams’ storytelling in Jackal that does not sit well with me: after the midpoint, there is an increase in “telling” the reader what is going on as opposed to “showing” the reader. I will admit that this is a nit-picky thing for me to point out. But instead of allowing the underlying themes to be alluded to or expanded upon through the actions of the antagonist—and later uncovered by the sleuthing of the protagonist—there are several scenes where a character just outright says what is going on. This had the effect of quickly speeding up the pace of the plot after many chapters of relatively slow pacing.

My overall rating for Erin E. Adams’ Jackal is 4.5 out of 5 stars. I finished this story in a single day! I could not put it down! Erin E. Adams’ prose is emotional, vivid, visceral, and complex. There were multiple chapters with a lot of “telling” instead of “showing” which, in my opinion, took away from the power of the storytelling. But all in all, I truly appreciated the experience of this book, and I can see myself revisiting it in the future. I highly recommend Jackal to fans of horror who appreciate critiques on modern-day racism and the erasure of certain historical narratives.

Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of Jackal by Erin E. Adams.

Rating Cheat Sheet

4.75 - 5.00 stars: Everyone should read this book! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I won’t revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book. I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it.

Post Date: 25 October 2025