The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (Review)

Two Second Review

★★★☆☆ // 3 s t a r s

In the most basic sense, The Taking of Jake Livingston is about Jake Livingston, a queer, African American medium; and Sawyer Doon. Essentially, Sawyer is trying to kill everyone who wronged him and Jake is basically caught in the cross-fire leading to him also being haunted by Sawyer. The book does take on a lot of important themes and there is a clear presentation of diverse representation.

The Book

Trigger Warnings: suicide, attempted sexual assault, homophobia, racism, abuse (p)

Release Date: July 13, 2021

Publisher: Putnam

Genre(s): YA, Horror, LGBTQIA+, Thriller

Series?: no

Page Count: 256

Premise:

Sixteen-year-old Jake Livingston sees dead people everywhere. But he can’t decide what’s worse: being a medium forced to watch the dead play out their last moments on a loop or being at the mercy of racist teachers as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep. Both are a living nightmare he wishes he could wake up from. But things at St. Clair start looking up with the arrival of another Black student—the handsome Allister—and for the first time, romance is on the horizon for Jake. Unfortunately, life as a medium is getting worse. Though most ghosts are harmless and Jake is always happy to help them move on to the next place, Sawyer Doon wants much more from Jake. In life, Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life. Now he’s a powerful, vengeful ghost and he has plans for Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about dead world goes out the window as Sawyer begins to haunt him. High school soon becomes a different kind of survival game—one Jake is not sure he can win.

Review

I need a moment to talk about the cover because damn, I love this cover SO much? Like, enough that I'd probably buy the book to have on my shelf even though the book wasn't all that great and I'm too broke to afford more…

Anyway, The Taking of Jake Livingston is a horror book (we don't address the fact that my about page literally says "I never read horror"). To be completely honest though, it didn't really feel much like horror—at least, not what I classify is too much horror that I won't actually read it. I think the possession aspect of it was just not my favorite thing, and while the book started off great, I did find myself zoning out quite a bit after a while (the end was great, though).

The racism and microaggression were obviously very highlighted in the book and obviously very clearly faced by Jake. It was written and shown really well, and actually shows almost a real-world insight into how discrimination against both how people of color and queer people could/can feel, even though the book is fantasy.

The characters. I'm not really going to explain much here but know. Sawyer—absolutely, amazingly written and like almost unbelievably multifaceted? Jake—slightly flat for an MC, but overall, relatable enough, especially with the issues that were being emphasized with the portrayal of him. Allister—did we really need him? Nah. But, he and Jake were cute and even though it felt insta-love as hell, I suppose I'll let it slide.

Okay, back to the world-building (I'm so all over the place with this review ah). This book definitely falls under the Baby Books™ category and it's really nice because the pacing is super fast in a good way, but also it did feel slightly underdeveloped and more than a little confusing. After a while the "ecto-mist" made sense, but that was about the extent of the medium aspect that I actually understood. The whole ancestral plane thing? Like what was even going on there and where did it come from? It kind of reminded me of those scenes in Black Panther, but then didn't coincide with the rest of the book and just baffled me more. As much as we dislike info-dumps (sometimes), it would've been so helpful in this book and I found myself wishing for one more and more as I read on.

❝ Black people are always the punch line of a joke—it's maybe why none

of the books we read have Black people in them unless they're slaves. ❞

Other than that spew of confusion up there, The Taking of Jake Livingston is a pretty decent book, and while it had a few flaws, it wasn't bad by any means. Some things were just less than I expected, and though it wasn't unimpressive, it wasn't exactly impressive.

Tropes…

— high school outcast (that sounds so weird but y'all know what I mean)

— (ghost) possession

Read…If You Liked…

• Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

• Legendborn by Tracy Deonn (gosh, I love this book SO much)

Watch…If You Liked…

• Get Out (haven't actually watched this, but the summary says that the book is for fans of the movie, so)

• Girl vs. Monster (I know this doesn't actually make sense, but I fricking love this movie and we deserve a rewatch, so I'm putting it here where it makes more sense than prolly any other book I'll read in the near future)

ADD THE TAKING OF JAKE LIVINGSTON TO YOUR GOODREADS SHELF

random q to drop comments <3

What's your favorite book?

(basic for the first lol; i could never choose one, but if i had to

pick for the sake of it, most likely The Dragon Republic)