Ring Shout

This book gave me shivers, both from the monsters and the evil that humans are capable of.

This novella from P. Djeli Clark manages to be action-packed while still dealing with heavy topics like racism and slavery. It’s the 1920s, and Maryse Boudreaux is a Black woman living in the deep south of the United States. Maryse and her friends have formed a militia to fight the ‘Ku Kluxes,’ monsters who take the form of Ku Klux Klan members to spread hate further.

There are points in this book where it seems like all is lost, which makes it all… show more.

Ring Shout is historical fiction on a whole other level of weirdness, in the best possible way. It’s 1922 in Macon, Georgia, and a ragtag group of Black women and their allies are fighting back against the Ku Kluxes. But not all Ku Kluxes are just men in white hoods. Sure, they all start out that way, but a malign supernatural influence spread by the white supremacist film The Birth of a Nation has started transforming them into bone-white, red-eyed, nine-foot-tall demons. Yes, Klansmen as literal demons. It’s a bit on the nose, but it totally works. Ring Shout is… show more.

Ring Shout is the powerful story of a young Black woman and her close-knit community who fight the KKK in the early 1920s. Clark’s KKK are possessed by actual demons, monsters bent on using the hate in the bodies they’ve consumed to conquer our world. All that stands between them and domination are Maryse Boudreaux, her foul-mouthed friend who is handy with a Winchester, and a former Harlem Hellfighter fresh from the killing fields of France. Maryse has a sword that summons the souls of former enslaved to slay these evil Ku Kluxes, but when the Klan plans a rally… show more.