Jack & Jill

Kealan Patrick Burke — 2017

When they were kids, Gillian and John used to visit the local cemetery every Sunday after church. It was a curious place for children to frequent, but they had their reasons. The main attraction was the lofty hill that separated the cemetery from the elementary school, and the act of tumbling down it like Jack and Jill was a ritualistic escape from the abuse they were suffering at their father's hands. It was an escape that lasted only until John's tragic death. Now, Gillian is all grown up. Married with two children, she has managed over the years to force the trauma of her nightmarish childhood into the darkest recesses of her mind. But lately there are dreams, and in them Gillian sees impossibly vivid reenactments of the horrors she endured as a child. Nightly, she sees John die all over again, only not in the way she remembers. And something else is in those dreams, stalking her, a terrible figure with wire-hanger hands and a plastic bag wrapped around its rotten face. A monster whose reach starts to extend beyond the boundaries of sleep into the waking world, threatening everything Gillian holds dear. A monster she once called Daddy.

Reviews

Ruth Parker @ruth

Nov 18, 2021

There is only one way to describe this book. And that is DARK.

Vin @bookcadaver

Aug 10, 2021

“Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water Jack fell down and broke his crown And Jill came tumbling after” I’m genuinely quite shocked at this novel. I was not expecting something so deep & unsettling from such a small paged book. Gillian, who the story follows, is plagued by nightmares of her brother, mother and father. She is restless, disoriented & swindles down into insanity which I think is portrayed so incredibly sad and very true. The irritability that Gillian feels, the gnawing fear and nightmarish hallucinations she endures was genuinely creepy and had me feeling uncomfortable as hell. Her inability to feel safe around her family, which results in her family not feeling safe around her, was heartbreaking. This story is dark, unsettling and I felt there was a good stance with the whole unreliable narrator. A lot of questions I had at the end weren’t answered, which I actually think I’m content with. It lets your mind wander and makes you double-take what you think is the truth or not. Trigger Warnings: Pedophilia, Incest, Child Abuse, Mental Health, Body Horror, Gore, Murder

Stefinn@unholysoup

Mar 14, 2025

Jasmine@jasmeaniethebookish

Sep 16, 2022

Michelle S@michmiau

Dec 16, 2021

D B@qruqsk

Nov 27, 2021

Jessica Nottingham@hdbblog

Sep 1, 2021