The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (ARC Review)

Title: The Taking of Jake Livingston
Author: Ryan Douglass
Type: Fiction
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary,
Horror, Paranormal, LGBTQ
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers (Penguin Random House)
Date published: July 13, 2021

A complimentary digital copy of this book was kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Jake Livingston is one of the only black kids at St. Clair Prep, one of the others being his infinitely more popular older brother. It’s hard enough fitting in but to make matters worse and definitely more complicated, Jake can see the dead. In fact he sees the dead around him all the time. Most are harmless. Stuck in their death loops as they relive their deaths over and over again, they don’t interact often with people. But then Jake meets Sawyer. A troubled teen who shot and killed sixteen kids at a local high school last year before taking his own life. Now a powerful, vengeful ghost, he has plans for his afterlife–plans that include Jake. Suddenly, everything Jake knows about ghosts and the rules to life itself go out the window as Sawyer begins haunting him and bodies turn up in his neighborhood. High school soon becomes a survival game–one Jake is not sure he’s going to win.

⤖ My Review ⬻

I’m not sure where to begin with my review for The Taking of Jake Livingston, so I’ll start with the fact that it was one of my most highly-anticipated releases of 2021. (Also, can we take a moment to absorb that 2022 is just 15 days away?! I feel like I say this every year, but 2021 has got to be the year that slipped by the quickest for me compared to other recent years). But back to The Taking of Jake Livingston:

There were many parts of this book that surprised me–I either didn’t expect them before starting the book, or didn’t see them coming once I dove into the story. Some of these aspects that surprised me I found to be pleasant surprises, whereas other parts I’m still not sure how I feel about. Unfortunately, I can’t go into detail about any of those surprises without spoiling some important parts of the book–sorry to keep you hanging, but I don’t want to ruin the experience for you if you haven’t read The Taking of Jake Livingston yet.

One thing that I can talk about because I consider it to be pretty relative was the level of spookiness in this book–I expected it to be more scary throughout, but will say that some parts made my skin crawl or even gave me the urge to tuck my feet under a blanket and/or away from the edges of beds or couches, hehe. Due to those parts, I didn’t read The Taking of Jake Livingston once the sun set.

I found the characters in this book to be interesting! And I also would have liked to get to know them a little better–so, I wouldn’t have minded if The Taking of Jake Livingston had been a little longer. I think that I would have gotten a better grasp on Jake’s character as well as supporting characters, which in turn would have flushed the story out a bit more for me. In either case, I did enjoy The Taking of Jake Livingston, and am curious to see what Ryan Douglass will write next!

⤖ About the Author ⬻

Ryan Douglass was born and raised in Atlanta, where he currently resides, cooking pasta and playing records. He enjoys wood wick candles, falling asleep on airplanes, and advocating for stronger media representation for queer Black people.