🏀🦌 The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones – Book Review (0.5/5 Stars)
👉 What in the haunted elk, basketball showdown, fever dream did I just read?!
📌 Affiliate link: If you’re feeling brave, get The Only Good Indians on Amazon
⚠️ Spoiler Alert!
If you haven’t read The Only Good Indians and you plan to — well, good luck, my friend. But seriously, this review is packed with full spoilers, because I’m not about to leave you hanging like that elk left these poor characters.
😵 Quick Take — My Honest Thoughts
I tried. I really did. I was excited to read another book by Stephen Graham Jones because his stories are usually unique, even if his writing style takes me five re-reads and a YouTube explainer to understand. But The Only Good Indians? I don’t even know where to start.
0.5 stars out of 5. That’s right — my first ever half-star rating. Because what on earth was this?
✔️ The writing: Impossible to follow.
✔️ The plot: Absurd. (An elk ghost... playing basketball?!)
✔️ The payoff: None.
✔️ The horror: A few cool visual scares, I’ll give it that.
And if you finished this book? You deserve a trophy. A big one. Maybe shaped like an elk head.
💥 Trigger Warnings
✅ Animal cruelty (lots, including elk, dogs, horses)
✅ Graphic violence
✅ Gore
✅ Domestic violence
✅ Substance abuse
✅ Suicide
✅ Racism
✅ Sexual content
📖 Detailed Plot Summary (Yes, This Is Really What Happens)
🦌 It all started with some really bad hunting decisions…
Four Blackfeet men — Lewis, Ricky, Gabe, and Cass — go on a forbidden elk hunt. They trespass on land meant for elders, kill a ton of elk (including a pregnant cow elk), and leave most of the bodies behind. Our pregnant elk? She comes back as Elk Head Woman, a ghostly vengeance-seeker with a serious grudge.
🍻 One by one, the elk gets her revenge
✅ Ricky — Years later, he’s working out of town, gets surrounded by elk, and ends up dead.
✅ Lewis — Married to Peta, living a semi-normal life... until he starts seeing elk visions and spirals into total paranoia. He kills his coworker Shaney (thinking she’s the elk), accidentally kills his wife (thinking she’s possessed), finds an elk calf in her body (??), and flees — only to get shot by some random vigilantes.
🏀 Then it gets... weird. Like, basketball weird.
✅ Part 2 — The elk spirit reincarnates as a teenage girl (don’t ask), sets her sights on Gabe and Cass.
✅ Cass — Tries to hold a sweat lodge ceremony, but everything goes sideways. His dogs get killed. He and Gabe descend into drunken chaos, and after a bizarre sequence of events, Gabe ends up killing Cass.
✅ Gabe — Overcome with guilt, he stages his suicide to look like Cass did it.
🏃♀️ Final showdown: Hoop dreams and hoof nightmares
✅ Denorah, Gabe’s basketball-star daughter, gets stalked by Elk Head Woman. And yes — they play a literal game of basketball as part of this supernatural revenge plot.
✅ There’s a violent chase. There’s snow. There’s delirium. Denorah somehow survives by leading Elk Head Woman back to the hunting site. Elk Head Woman finds her calf’s remains, transforms back into an elk, and walks off into the wilderness. THE END.
🤔 Final Verdict: What did I just read?!
✔️ The good: A few creepy, vivid horror scenes.
✔️ The bad: The writing is impenetrable. The plot makes zero sense. And don’t even get me started on the basketball showdown.
✔️ The final rating: 0.5 / 5 stars. Honestly? I want my reading time back.
💬 Memorable (for the wrong reasons?) Moments
✨ The ghost elk girl challenging someone to a basketball game
✨ A man removing teeth to check for elk ivory (because that’s a thing, apparently)
✨ A revenge plot that required... none of this
📚 If You Liked This, You Might Actually Like:
👉 The Hunger by Alma Katsu (creepy, historical horror done right)
👉 The Fisherman by John Langan (slow-burn horror with a payoff)
👉 My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (if you’re braver than me and want to try him again)
📌 Grab Your Copy... If You Dare
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones — Buy on Amazon
💡 Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for horror that’s confusing, deeply strange, and includes ghost elk playing basketball, this is your book. Otherwise? There are better ways to spend your time.
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