BOOK REVIEW: JUNIPER BY ROSS JEFFERY

Just today, I told my partner that if someone put a gun to my head and made me pick between my dear, darling Baby Cat and every human I know, I swear that 95% of you would be in the bin

Juniper by Ross Jeffery was a pleasure to read for review. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that since I started taking book reviews on again, this one has been one of my favourites. In the top 2. It’s about a tiny, neglected town in America. There’s some sort of apocalyptic event happening, or it’s happened, but that really isn’t the point of this book. The point is the characters.

I usually try to start a review by listing my criticisms first and then I move on to the positives, but I have to start the other way around because I can’t wait to tell you about how well the characters are written. We have a tiny cast of people here, one of whom is detestable, and I felt like I knew them. Like, really knew them. There is something deeply satisfying in reading characters as well realised as the ones in this book. I’m a character-centric reader and the most important thing to me is believing in the people that I’m reading, otherwise I just don’t care about the story.

On the note of character, I would also like to mention that there is an abusive relationship in this book (between married couple Janet and Klein), which I thought was explored respectfully and realistically. The abused party is represented as understandably troubled, though not weak, and relatable. All too often, I read relationships like this where the abuser is a raving maniac right from the beginning that somehow still snares a partner, and the victim just goes along with it without any motivation or understanding given. This was not the case in Juniper, and though this aspect of the book was unpleasant and upsetting, I must give credit to Jeffery for writing Janet as an empathetic character with agency, rather than falling into the trap of offensive stereotyping.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the prose and Jeffery’s writing style. I knew in the first chapter that I would enjoy the whole book, and I also knew that based on the quality of the writing alone, I would rate it highly. The story would have had to be absolute trash to drag it down, which it isn’t!

The setting is described wonderfully. The further into the location I went, the dirtier I felt. I got some serious Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibes in the beginning and could almost see the story through a tobacco filter, or through that haze of heat that rises from sun-boiled tarmac. It made me want to eat some nice fresh fruit and take a hot shower, but in a good way.

Now on to the things that I didn’t think were so strong... (I’m crying inside because I don’t want to knock this book at all really). This first one actually isn’t a negative for me at all because as mentioned, I mostly care about character. While the plot is interesting, I think if you read more for plot than character, you might like this a little less than I did. I was about halfway through when my partner

asked me, “how’s the book?” and I told him that it was amazing that though there didn’t seem to be loads happening, I was hooked. I read it in one sitting. Juniper’s greatest strengths are the writing itself and its characters, and I think the plot (though good!) takes a backseat, but for me, that really didn’t take away from my enjoyment at all. The pacing is great for the kind of story this is, and the tension is built really well, but this isn’t a thrill-ride, if that’s what you look for.

Next (and I’m nit-picking here), the dialogue sometimes felt a little bit unnatural. Not hammy, per se, but maybe just a bit dramatic to feel 100% real sometimes.

My one and only proper gripe with the story comes out of my very deep and serious love of cats. Oh man, do I love cats. LOVE THEM. Just today, I told my partner that if someone put a gun to my head and made me pick between my dear, darling Baby Cat and every human I know, I swear that 95% of you would be in the bin. And that’s not because I don’t like/love you all, but because Baby Cat has been with me for 11 years and she’s one of my greatest loves in life. I adore her, with her smiling little mouth and her funny, thin, little winnicky tail. She is my girly, my little whirly girly. We got Thor and Loki to join her a year back and now my days are spent just alternating between the three of them, watching them with adoration, and bending over backwards to do their bidding. In fact, let me tell you this story about Thor and the way he does everything really loudly.... *goes off on tangent about how great and unique and wonderful my cats are*

.......... and that’s why really, we should all.... Oh God, what was I talking about?! Profuse apologies. Ahem.

So, my gripe with Juniper was that I really got the distinct impression that Jeffery hates cats. Either he hates cats so didn’t realise that a few things he wrote would be deeply upsetting to someone who doesn’t, or he was intentionally trying to hurt the reader. Or it could be neither of those things and I’ve just taken it that way because... you know... I LOVE CATS I LOVE THEM SO MUCH HAVE I MENTIONED THIS. I’m fine with being upset if that’s my natural reaction to the story but I take issue with it when I feel like the writer is forcing me to cry. Don’t get me wrong, there isn’t excessive cat maiming or cruelty or anything that should put you off reading this – it’s not Cannibal Holocaust, but there were a couple of instances that I thought were just unnecessary. It reminded me of the last chapter of a fantasy novel I proofread for someone once. It was a huge battle scene that was shockingly lacking in human suffering, and yet every other paragraph was a detailed description of a horse being stabbed/killed/disembowelled/beheaded/etc. And I mean detailed. It was as if he’d written the entire book just so he could delight in mass horse slaughter. I asked him why he’d gone so hard on it and he said he really REALLY hates horses. It didn’t occur to him that most people don’t enjoy reading equestrian torture. This was nowhere near that level but gave a similar impression. Also, why was Betty so obsessed with his balls, Jeffery? WHY?!

Despite my GIANT WEIRD CAT DEFENCE, Juniper is a 4.5 out of 5 stars for me. Given that I was inexplicably personally offended by that one aspect, I hope the removal of only a mere half star tells you how great this book is. There is nothing that could justify giving it a lower rating than that, it’s almost a perfect book. Based on the synopsis, it’s not something I would have picked up on my own, and I’m so very glad it came my way. It is an absolute pleasure to read, so much so that less than a weak later, I’m reading the sequel. My TBR pile is literally over 100 books high but I bumped TOME straight to the top.

I highly recommend it, and look forward to delving into more of Jeffery’s work. Hmmmm still awkward with endings so
​
Bye.

Reviewed by K. M. Edwards ​

Juniper is the first book in Ross Jeffery’s proposed trilogy: a post-apocalyptic horror about an insane American town seemingly at the edge of reality. As Juniper suffers from scorching drought and medieval famine, the townsfolk are forced to rely on the ‘new cattle’ for food: monstrous interbred cats kept by the oppressed Janet Lehey.

But there’s a problem: Janet’s prized ginger tom, Bucky, has gone missing, flown the coop. As Janet and her deranged ex-con husband Klein intensify their search for the hulking mongrel, Betty Davis, an old woman clinging to survival on the outskirts of Juniper, discovers something large and ginger and lying half-dead by the side of the road.

She decides to take it home…

Juniper is surreal, dark, funny, and at times: excruciatingly grotesque. Buckle up for a wild ride through the dust-ridden roads of a tiny, half-forgotten American town…

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