Customer Reviews

All the Beautiful Sinners

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book challenges the reader to become involved in the story. I am so used to novels that are simply "bubble gum for the mind", that I had to start over about a quarter into the book and actually pay attention. This book is not "dumbed down". It is an adventure. The prose is beautiful. The storyline is complex, amazing and chilling. There are several different storylines that can be gleaned from this book if you choose to do so. I love Jim Doe and hope to read more books with him as a central character. This author has definitely gotten my attention!

This book puts the thrill back in thriller. Not only is it edge-of-the-seat exciting, but the prose...just plain beautiful. One memorable image after another. I sure hope Jones brings back Jim Doe in a future book. I'll be watching for it.

Stephen Graham Jones's All the Beautiful Sinners is a spectacular thriller written with an elegant prose style and told with sharp, cinematic imagery. Its characters, often complex and kinetic, inhabit a harsh, unforgiving America-a place where serial killers are gods and children do their bidding.

This is not a book for the squeamish, nor for the lazy. It is an intelligent read. Characters talk like real people, react to their surroundings like real people would react, but live in an extraordinary environment. It is not a difficult book, but the reader must pay attention, as readers should for any book.

If you enjoy thoughtful writing, read it. You will inhabit its landscape, will walk (and sometimes run, sometimes cradling broken appendages) with its characters, and will come to love even the darkest edges of its menacing reality.

I highly recommend All the Beautiful Sinners to anyone who loves good writing.

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SINNERS is a work of art. The cadence of the prose snap off the page and their rhythm is amazing. The book is an amazing thriller but don't pigeon hole this book into any genere it's a book for everybody. It'll keep you reading late into the night...and did I mention the prose...this guy can WRITE. Seriously if you're looking to read something different something with edge and is suspenseful, something that will make you fall in love with literature again, buy this book. Spend the [money] on ALL THE BEAUTIFUL SINNERS.

Ah....All the Beautiful Sinners....a suspenseful story with all the right elements to keep the reader involved. The rhythm of the story is remarkable: take a step forward-glance over your shoulder (sometimes far into the past)-slide back just a little-then move on. While this rhythm propels readers through the uncertainty that looms around the characters, it also explains why events are happening. The events-murder, kidnapping, loss-are presented in vivid descriptions. For example, one of the FBI guys is tracking a sociopath behind a path of tornados. The scene unfolds with a water tower eerily watching the destruction: "The Bluff City water tower was leaned over, like it was trying to look at something on the next street." Throughout this chapter, stark images of the tower breaking apart foreshadow the tragedy that happens next.
Flashbacks help readers crawl into the minds of the characters. One in particular, with a father and son on the lake, is told in slow motion. At another point in the story, FBI agents move into a basement where they suspect the killer might be: "Behind Creed, four more agents streamed down the stairs, covering each other. They were like circus performers, a troupe of mimes in their black turtlenecks and identical blazers." Sharp, clear images like these take the reader right into the scene. References to American Indians are strong and thought provoking. At one point, Jim Doe, the main character, decides not to call the cops for help: "He wanted to call the DPS, the FBI. Agnes. But a white cop in an Indian place like this. Or, cops. All the men would fold themselves into lockers, spin the locks from the inside, stay there as long as they had to." Character development is wonderful!
All the Beautiful Sinners can be read on many different levels: for the beauty of the narration, for historical and symbolic values, or for pure enjoyment. The story is full of tension, violence, and loneliness as Jim Doe travels across the country, at first seeking the murderer of a sheriff, but later unraveling the mystery of his own sister who vanished years before. Highly recommended!

Stephen Graham Jones is a unique writer in that he can take the mystery novel genre and reinvent it. That's what his strongest quality is, reinvention. A writer friend of mine once told me that all the stories and forms in the world have been told or used before. He said the difference between a good or bad writer is how they take the stories and forms and present them in a new, vivid way. Jones' takes a handful of Midwest clichés and tosses them back at us, rethought and rewritten, like he was the origin.

But, interestingly enough, ATBS cannot be read singularly as a mystery novel. Within the context of the surface level mystery there is a complex web of historicity that makes this novel highly literary and highly theoretical. Jones' is one of American Indian literature's new authors, bringing to the discourse field a contemporary voice that is challenging and contemptuous of modern U.S. society. Jones, like Alexie and Howe, has used the mystery genre as a means to give voice to the multi-faceted frustration felt by indigenous peoples in the U.S. The form, in and of itself, becomes a rhetorical tool that allows the author to challenge readers to the core. Who is "The Indian" in this text? What does that character embody? How is this character determined by dominant culture's grossly demented stereotypes of American Indians? How is s/he not? Does it matter? As the mystery unfolds, it becomes evident that the characters, especially the American Indian characters, are all working on a landscape that has been plagued by colonization and domination. The novel is ripe for scholarly evaluation.

If for no other reason, people should read All the Beautiful Sinners for all the beautiful sentences that make up this novel. Stephen Jones rocks my writer-ly self-esteem. I get sucked into his prose only to emerge momentarily to think, dang! I wish I would have written that! There are many elements of craft employed in the novel. On one hand, it reads like it was written to be watched (watch out Hollywood!) and on the other hand, Jones never lets down his literary craft, challenging us with structure and satiating our need for insightful and well-written sentences. Jones' fiction is not an easy read but put on a sweatband and work out your brain muscles because this book is worth it!

Jones has an absolutely entrancing way of weaving his words into a work of art...I believe this to be one of the best novels I have had the pleasure of reading and I have read the best.

This book forces you to pay attention to what's going on--because a lot is happening--or else you'll be forced to come back and read it again. This is a very engaging tale about perhaps the most in-depth villain I've ever read about, a young Indian Sheriff who's been searching for his sister for years, and a couple FBI agents thrown into the mix. The book is so thought-out and so involved you can't help but admire Stephen Graham Jones' abilities here. His prose is beautiful and a hell of a lot better than hacks like Anne Rice. I wish I could fully encompass what a great book this is here, but unfortunately my skills are very limited. I cannot hope to do this work justice...you'll just have to read it for yourself.

The opening to this book haunts me to this day. This is not your typical serial killer story. SGJ is one of the most talented writers today, and while this book is not EASY it is extremely rewarding. My favorite of his to date. Great job Stephen.

I knew this one was gonna be complex and I wanted to reduce the confusion I often suffer from smaller reading doses, so I embraced masochism and read this in three days.

Absolutely amazing. Rich prose, verby -- full of velvety goodness. Even some of the subplots that at first only seem to serve as character-building devices end up being plot-relevant, so pay attention throughout. This may be the most character names ever introduced in one book, Bible excluded. . . Part of me wishes AtBS were about 100 pages (or a few town searches) shorter, but then we'd have been robbed of the brilliant passages that came with them. Every time I'd read one of the agents proclaim the equivalent of "we've got him," I'd feel the weight of the remaining pages in my right hand and realize their delusion.

Well done, Jones!