Kari Already Has Too Many Problems and then a Ghost Shows Up. Can't an Urban Indian Get a Break? Review of White Horse.

 

I liked this character enough that I hope there is a sequel.

I had to think about White Horse for a few days. This isn't a bad thing. A book that makes a reader think is better than a book that's immediately forgotten. 

I like the characters very much. Kari seems like a cool person to know but I probably wouldn't hang around with her. Lots of drinking, lots of smoking, and way too much eyeball rolling. My eyeball-roll-o-meter went off the charts. When the characters aren't smoking, drinking, or rolling their eyeballs, they have interesting family dynamics going on. Lots of love and attempts at understanding between most of them. Kari's care of her father is especially touching. Some sexual and mental abuse but there is comeuppance. awaiting.

Oh, and Kari loves cats. I have to like a character who loves cats. (I have one beside me right now as I write this. A cat, not a character.)

Now for the horror parts. I want more to happen faster. We keep seeing Kari's dead mother crying or screaming or bleeding, but it happens so often that the jump scares cease to be scary. At least her ghost mom wasn't rolling her eyeballs. But hey, that would be scary seeing a ghost rolling its eyeballs. I also think the supernatural powers that be should have just given Kari the warclub instead of making her stay in an expensive hotel to find it. Do supernatural entities own stock in The Stanley Hotel? I know Kari is a fan of The Shining, but really, it would have been cheaper if the warclub came with an order of burgers and fries at McDonalds. That would be a spooky Happy Meal surprise.

White Horse is a gripping mystery as to why and how Kari's mother died.  And Auntie Squeaker is a cool name.

Thanks to Netgalley and to Flatiron Books for allowing me to read and review White Horse.