Clown in a Cornfield by Adam CesareMy rating: 4 of 5 star
I almost didn’t read this book. Clowns in the cornfield sound clinche’ and like trashy body horror shock value pulpy bullshit. While I wasn’t “entirely” wrong - about the cliche themes - this story does take place in a small midwestern town full corn and involves a lot of gory kills - I was wrong about it being shock value pulpy bullshit.
This book has actual value and I’m glade to recommend it to fans of YA horror. I also think a few adults could learn a thing or two about from this novel.
The Story
As I said Clowns in the Cornfield is set in a small rural midwestern town where everyone grew up knowing each other. Then there’s the new girl. Quine is accidentally swept into the tension of the town as their seems to be a war between the adults and teens in town. This tension bubbles over when a prank goes wrong on founders day.
Likes!
Troupy without being cliche’.
This novel has all the familiar teen slasher tropes without being totally cliche’.
The popular kids are not needlessly cruel assholes. The nerds and younger kids are not helpless victims. The punks are cool. The new girl isn’t picked up for no reason. The closeted gay couple aren’t the main topics of gossip around town.
This doesn’t save any of them. They are still hunted down and and slain as though they were the same irritating assholes from Carrie, Friday the 13th, or Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s as though the old guard takes offense to these changes and tries to take them all out. The meanest person in the school is a teacher. And the biggest bullies in town are the same ones you’d call for help.
The town is itself is divided down the middle between the adults and the teenagers who hope to someday take over the town and make it a better place. Then the clown, who is the town’s founder, shows up to make his opinion known. He appears to believe things are better without so many opinionated kids and their cellphones.
Unfortunately for him, “the final girl” is a quick learner at the rifle.
Loved
Suspenseful without being gory.
The kids help each other, they fight and flee they do dumb stuff, they do smart stuff, but all of it is believable things you’d do in a panic. They fight back.
The clown kills in every way BUT a gun and some of those ways are bloody. So a blood thirsty audience will get it’s kicks - but the story isn’t torchere porn. It’s not graphic for the fun of it. Also, this story in no way glorifies the killer, or makes what he’s doing seem cool and justified. The writer definitely seemed aware of the current temperature of the public towards mass violence.
This story could be extremely triggering for mass violence in a public setting, at a party. But the writer breaks the tension in key places by either having the characters acknowledge this, or having someone be saved. As it’s about to become too much, the story is turned on it’s ear all together into something totally unexpected.
Disliked
The story is great and the explanations work for the horror story universe but some of the reasoning didn’t totally make since to me. I wanted more details, more clarity on what exactly, specifically, motivated the killing of some many teenagers.
Most questions were answered, but some of the ones that weren’t bothered me. .
Like why was Col blamed for the death of his sister? He didn’t make her go up there, not did he make her jump. He was at his party. He pulled a stunt, and halfway through the fall she…went slack? Or something like that. It appeared that someone filmed her getting hit in the head before she jumped right? Who did that?
What was up with he adult’s reactions to that footage? It was an accident.
Was there a specific reason - a single event that made every literally scared to see teens with camera phones?
At the the town just goes back to business as usual after the founding family, the sherif, the teachers, parents and who knows who else attempted to kill off a whole generation? And the kids are just pranking the shell shocked adults with camera phones after?
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| Adam Cesare |
The Author
Adam Cesare love horror cinema. He runs Project: Black T-Shirt, a YouTube review show where he talks horror films and pairs them with reading suggestions. Clowns in the Cornfield has won a Brum Stoker Aware for Superior Achievement in Young Adult Novel of 2020. Follow the Amazon Associates Links below if you're interested in checking out more of Adam's work. .
Conclusion:
Clowns in the Cornfield is a modern teen slasher for the present 2025 YA audience. Trigger warning for mass violence breaking out at party.
It follows all the tropes of being a teen slasher, but somehow avoids being cliche’. The gore is bloody. The killer seems an unstoppable horrifying shit. And the deaths are shocking, and horrible. But there is no torchere porn, no glorified meanness, and no justified slaughter. Everyone who dies is a good or decent person. Even though you come to sort of understand the motives, this book should not be a blueprint for some sick mind. If anything it might be a cure - because when does a trend stop being cool….?
Recommendations
Zillinials and Boomers for sure.
Here are some other books by Adam Cesare for you try. Please use my Amazon Associates links below to buy these books on Amazon or Audible. Using my links really helps the blog grow and encourages me to keep doing this. If however, you don't want to feed the ever growing consumer monster that is Amazon, please considering borrowing these books from your local library. You can also use the library's free audio book service Libby to listen on the go. Our libraries really need out support! Enjoy!
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