Heads Will Roll lives up to the cover and I enjoyed this quite a bit. It’s skews a little young though not quite YA, but maybe not as brutal as I had hoped.
Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning
2024, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, Penguin
https://amzn.to/3YY6Lre
Cover design by Vi-An Nguyen
I think every time I read a camp slasher I go back to Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp as far as film goes and in books you know… I really only have Con Season by Adam Caesar to equate this to. If you know of any other campground in the cabins pine needle strewn pathway camp slashers that live up to those, let me know. I’ve also likened it as well to Supermassive games like The Quarry so I highly recommend that if you haven’t played it yet or if you did enjoy it, definitely check out Heads Will Roll.
Judged by the cover…
I chose this book partially because of the cover; it was absolutely irresistible. Now of course this was part of the patrons poll where there were other books it was running up against. But the cover and the description together were why it ended up on that poll. I’m certain that the description is the biggest reason that it won votes on that poll.
So it’s that one-two punch; the same thing that gets you in the bookstore when you’re standing in denial and you see a cover that calls to you of any genre and you turn it over and read that back copy. I think the second reason that this book spoke to me and why I would have eventually read it anyway is because it is the cancellation of somebody doing or saying something on social media.
On a good day I dislike social media. On a bad day, I’m afraid of social media. So this speaks to me as it does many people not that we’re all saying terrible things and getting cancelled but we’ve seen people who we may have followed that have been on the sidelines watching people we never would have followed be cancelled. I think it specifically speaks to fans of horror or fantasy fiction. Those who may have read the Harry Potter books, they watch what has gone on Twitter for the last couple years with just awe and amazement and shock, maybe revulsion or fear, so I think that this sort of topic really speaks to us.
There’s also on top of that the John Ronson book So you’ve been publicly shamed. I’ve not read that book but I’ve listened to him talk about it. I’ve watched videos about it, I’ve seen interviews with him on it, I’ve listened to podcasts about him on it and I’ve read his other book The psychopath test and really love his long-form journalism. but this is not about Jon Ronson this is about being cancelled and what a phenomenon it is.
And this is whether or not you believe in it because I can fully understand proponents of the point of view that cancel culture doesn’t exist. and they would also maybe not believe that call out culture is ever bad or even inherently bad or even has a few bad actors, another buzzword. then of course there are those on the other side whoAre disgusted by the dog piling tactics of cancel culture as they see it and fully understand that these things can be jumped on by people who are not even a target of or affected by the person who is being called out but simply want to ride coattails and be in the middle of that mosh pit. and of course there is the foreign interference angle on top of all of that.
So it was almost refreshing to read a very wholesome take on somebody being cancelled and sent to Camp Cancelled for something quite innocent really there was no foreign interference here this person wasn’t speaking necessarily about causing harm to one group or another what they said was quite honestly misunderstood.
I found it odd as it sounds like a refreshing take on cancel culture.
Onward to Camp Cancelled!
As noted in my very long intro about cancel culture this is about a TV star and I think of her as sort of like a Hannah Montana or a Punky Brewster if you want to go way back in time sort of person. female TV star who could do no wrong and was the idol of Millions.
Perhaps like Ally McBeal even. and she says something on Twitter that ruins her day, ruins her life, ruins the lives of all of her fans. this reminds me a lot of the subject of the book so you’ve been publicly shared by John Ronson and this is a book that came out before cancelled culture was really on the tips of our tongues somebody made a tweet got on an aeroplane and by the time they hit the ground they were reviled fired hated and their phone had completely blown up.
This happens to Willow in this book over a tweet that we don’t initially know what it was she said all we know is that all of her fans hate her people in her family probably doubt her and she has lost her job. Her agent has no idea what to do but just sends her out to Camp Castaway.
Willow’s worst nightmare was being cancelled. But the shadows in the woods of Camp Castaway might destroy more than her reputation.
After sitcom star Willow tweets herself into infamy and stumbles blind-drunk into a swimming pool, her agent ships her off to Camp Castaway. Nestled deep in upstate New York, Castaway is a summer camp for adults who are desperate to leave their mistakes behind. No real names, no phones . . . no way to call for help.
Willow’s fellow campers seem okay. Her own favourite actress is even here, making a s’more. And did that jaded writer, Dani, just wink at her? But the peaceful vibe is shattered when one of the campers vanishes and Willow finds a mutilated doll in her room with a threatening message rolled up inside its mouth. Terror grips the group, campers begin to lose their heads—literally—and disturbing past deeds come to light.
Is Willow about to get cancelled all over again, this time for good?
Now of course this is a horror story. There’s a giant axe dripping blood on the cover and that last line is she is going to get cancelled this time for good of course speaks to us as far as Camp slashers go. What happens in a slasher film that is taking place at a forest camp. Well all the counsellors get killed, half of the people there get killed and our final girl who’s usually this first shining example of girl then Willow is probably going to be chased around by an axe-wielding maniac.
I will say that this book does deliver. I mean if it didn’t then people would probably be crying foul. I don’t believe it’s a spoiler to say that the main girl Willow who was mentioned on the back cover gets chased around by an axe-wielding Maniac. I mean yes. So in the most basic sense this is the plot of Willow goes to camp and has to evade getting murdered but the other side of that coin always is let’s find out who’s doing the murdering and that is the biggest plot point that throws enough red herrings at us to keep it more of a mystery a murder mystery as opposed to a thriller.
The setting: Pine needle strewn paths
The setting of Camp Castaway may be very enticing to many people. If you are a fan of camp slashers and you’ve seen those pine needle Pathways from Cabin to cabin stretching off into the Shady forests you may have been enticed to go to Camp CastAway yourself. If you spend too much time on screens and your eyes are aching and your thumbs are sore and your neck is crooked then you may want to attend Camp Castaway. if you just have a love for that sort of glamping level of being out in the nature and not wanting to Rucka tent around for a week and just want that easy peasy bed and roof already provided for you campfire song at night relaxing outdoorsy experience you may want to attend Camp Castaway.
The setting of course is a summer camp and it is that very typical I used to work at a YMCA Camp that was similar I’ve attended Camp a camp at Eagle Lake here in Ontario and I’ve been to camp areas that are run by family members or friends and they manage a set of cabins like this and of course if you have seen Friday the 13th this is exactly what it is. a lot of these places are situated within Pine forests because there’s less bugs it’s easier to build they have a softer undergrowth there’s all sorts of reasons that it would be a lovely far more lovely to be under these giant pine trees and that is the setting that I get I can smell that gorgeous pain scented air in the early crisp of mornings while coffee bruise in the distance reading this book.
Now while the setting isn’t something that you’re completely steeped in because it is very much about character building I do enjoy that it is done right here. it all does take place in the camp we start out with Willow being driven to camp right and the whole story unfolds from there and we don’t leave the camp which is good because it is a camp slasher and we don’t want it to be taking place in the City or surrounding areas or have them only spend you know a few hours there and then leave we got a full-on camp in the cabins in the shower area down the trails into the forest into the the larger area the house that’s usually attached to these things. the only thing that it was missing really was a lodge they do have a stone circle outside that they spend a lot of time around but it doesn’t have that sort of base feeling like the lodge in Sleepaway Camp or Friday the 13th or for a more contemporary thing like if you’ve played the supermassive video games like the Quarry or until dawn which was not so much a camp like that but I had that big Lodge feel from this big mansion style Cottage that everyone was staying in I felt that it was missing that anchor in the story not only in setting but has a character itself. I just didn’t feel as attached to the stone circle around a campfire.
The Cast(away) of characters
Willow is the main character of the book who I have likened to Ally McBeal. I don’t watch a lot of Television so it was hard for me to really envision what this person was like outside of a caricature of a female TV star. especially these days because I haven’t watched television for a very long time. so Hannah Montana iCarly Ally McBeal I have nowhere really else to go with this. However, she is an internet personality as well and that’s something that I think we all can relate to so I think it’s a brilliant move on Josh Winning’s part.
She’s also in the closet we learned this quite quickly although it’s hinted at it first that she’s bisexual and has not been living as such for quite some time if not all of her life whether we are gay or not or closeted or not I think that there are even tiny aspects of lives that can be related to that. I’m certainly not going to like and being in the closet especially not in the Bible Belt to someone who’s secretly likes Neapolitan ice cream better than chocolate but you can using your imagination use that sort of hidden self and make it dark and understand at least a little bit where someone like Willow would be coming from.
I really like the lgbtq slant in this because it really works with the plot and I don’t want to give anything away plot wise for later on in the book and how this develops as far as a plot construct and what it does to decision making for the main character and other characters and the conversations that they have about that aspect of their lives and how we as a reader come to understand Willow’s motivations in a broader context.
Dani, Misty, and Kat are the lady campers alongside Juniper who also has some star power in this world that Josh Winning has created. Tie and buck and Kurt make up the male campers alongside Chef Jeff who works for the camp Ty also works for the camp but Blends a lot more often with the camper so he is just a camper character in many ways as a sort of camp counsellor if there was such a thing and baby is the owner of the camp.
I will say that I did mix up some of the mail campers and the female campers from time to time not because they lack character development but they’re just not front and centre often enough and near the end when one of them is gone I mixed it up with the other and wondered why they were back so I mean that’s my own fault. I really do appreciate some of the back and forth between Willow and Danny and their characters really blend well I think.
This is also one of those books that is a horror book for horror fans where the main character talks about horror movies a lot. In a way it’s sort of enchanting because we get the idea that she was never allowed to like horror movies and had no one to talk to about horror movies at least not for many years and it’s refreshing for them to be able to use horror movie references. I think this is part of why the main character skewed younger to me. Their horror movie references are kind of all over the place and it’s hard to pinpoint what sort of horror fan they are and without gatekeeping at all it just tended to skew younger or hipsterish to me.
There’s a little tiny bit of horrible philosophy that is very well developed peppered in amongst this book which I really do enjoy when a book is being sort of a meta narrative on horror fandom even to a small degree like this one. so it does have some fan service in that way and at the end of the day the entire book is a huge fan service because it is a camp Slasher.
Luckily all of the characters do fit into this story properly, nothing worse than looking at a slasher story that has a gang of teens let’s say and you always wonder why they’re even friends because they have such diverse representation not in race or culture or economic divides but in subculture age and disposition. they’re all about the same sort of economic class, they’re all sort of about the same age and they all sort of have the same temperament so you can imagine all of these people coming to this Camp the way that they have.
It’s not all cancelled people there’s people that just need a break maybe there’s people that are a little bit on the Run there’s people that just want to be without screens or technology because it is a locked cell phone camp. neatly solving the problem that a lot of novelists have in this day and age of how to treat cell phones because they can be that deus ex machina, and a nearly unavoidable one at that.
Their phones are locked up for the duration of this they also become a little bit of a plot point because often people are yearning for their phones or extolling the virtues of having given up their phones and then later on in the story when they kind of could use a phone then it gets interesting.While there are other characters in and among this like people that are off screen entirely within Willows family Willows acts may be friends of Willows her agent the driver that drives through there and there’s other people peppered in amongst the story of little or great importance I am certainly not going to spoil any of the story here because it is an engaging read.
Would I recommend this book?
While my major criticism of this is that everyone skews younger I just have a bit of an aversion to ya in an adult horror rapper. The Library of Congress classification for this book is gothic fiction slash Thriller fiction and using Gothic fiction as often what is applied to horror. So reading that and reading the back and looking at the cover I did expect it to be perhaps more brutal and a little less juvenile in the points of view presented.
Maybe I am just getting older and there isn’t a huge focus on writing for my age range and the target for horror seems younger and younger every year that passes for me. They read a lot more like Under 18, younger than what I suspect they’re supposed to be aged 18 to 30 within this novel. The good part of this is that it is suitable for a younger audience. I’d have no trouble recommending this book for people that are ages 13-14 and up. and of course if you just enjoy the lighter fare when it comes to horror and don’t want something extremely terrifying or gory then this would really fit the bill. It has some genuinely creepy moments, it has a wonderful summer camp atmosphere that can be a little bit Lonesome and scary to begin with and it has a very well chiselled plot.
I think every time I read a camp slasher I go back to Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp as far as film goes and in books you know I really only have con season by Adam Caesar to equate this to. if you know of any other really in the campground in the cabins pine needle strewn pathway camp slashers that live up to those let me know. I’ve also likened it of course as mentioned to supermassive games the Quarry and the Quarry is a beautiful Camp slasher whether you’re into playing video games or not it really plays like a film so I highly recommend that if you haven’t played it yet or if you enjoyed it definitely check out Heads Will Roll.
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I talk horror books; extreme horror, classic, slasher, gothic, and everything in between. Helping you find the next best horror book to read is the goal, and sharing new and old horror from my shelves and new releases is how! Horror, nonfiction and even true crime can be found here as I find that human beings are the scariest thing of all.
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