The Least of My Scars

By: Stephen Graham Jones

Narrated by: Alan Ross

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

You haven't heard of William Colton Hughes. Or, if you have, then you're not telling anybody. Not telling them anything, ever. He's not the serial killer on the news, in the textbooks. He's the one out there still punching his card, and a few other people's too. He is a nightmare come to life, waiting in his apartment for you to knock on his door.

William Colton Hughes is living his fantasy: his victims are delivered to his apartment every few days. But when he's suddenly alone, no visitors, nobody to talk to but himself, he begins to lose what little of his mind he has left. Has his benefactor, his employer, been his prison warden all along? His apartment complex a hospital? Is he going to have to go back to heaving dark plastic bags into dumpsters when nobody's looking?

Or will Dashboard Mary, a mysterious woman hell-bent on revenge, get to him first?

This is William Colton Hughes. Come and knock on his door.

©2013 Stephen Graham Jones (P)2017 Journalstone Publishing

Confusing & Intriguing

I was lost most of the time. Almost all of it is just an off kilter stream of consciousness of paranoid, sick, middle-age killer, Billy (William Colton Hughes). I thought I caught up in the last 1.5 hrs of the book, but then I got lost again. One moment to the next I wasn't sure who was real or in Billy's head and who was dead or alive. I'm still left scratching my head. I continued to listen because the narrator was so good, and I kept thinking I would catch up. In spite of everything, I was still curious and intrigued. And it's so rambling, as a stream of consciousness, I couldn't skip to the end and hope to understand anything. Other than the narrator and the effective strangeness of this book, it also was humorous in a sick way, at times, like the nicknames he called some of his victims and enemies.

a demented stream of consciousness

i think this book does all the things it’s supposed to do to bring you along with the narrator, but i do feel like some of the scenes are a little heavy handed in describing his actions. overall it gets a three because, as a reader, i do not feel like i needed all the details to understand his mental state, and because many of those details are what put me off of listening for a while because you need to be in a certain mental state yourself to process it.

also that the narrator can’t pronounce the word “cheshire,” which is a place name often mentioned in the book (but that’s an entirely different peeve).

i will say i was pleasantly intrigued by the ending, which made me go back and listen to the beginning again. the plot development pays off in the end but it did kind of lose me along the way—some of the later chapters really felt like a slog of blurred stream-of-consciousness psychotic rambling and were hard to get though with the same pace at which i had started listening.

Yep, definitely knock on this door...

The thing I really love about SGJ’s books and stories is that you never know where the next minute is going to take you. You might be laughing, crying, feeling Very Concerned for everyone, empathizing with the villain, omging, wtfing, and no waying all in the space of a single chapter. Then, just when you think the omging and wtfing are over, are calming down, are going to rest now, bam. Things get even more complex, wild, horrifying, and tragic. You get kicked, in the face, without mercy, until the very last word.

I mean that all in the best way possible. I have worked in the forensic field, worked as a therapist, and I’m hard to surprise at this point - like, it’s my job to see things coming, to not be surprised, right? By the things other people do, my own reactions to them, where words and actions are likely to end up under various contingencies... The problem is, I *really* like being surprised. Give me a “bent neck lady” moment any day. This book surprised me. It’s the kind where by the end, you’re wide-eyed, going “Oooo!”, and rubbing your hands together, Mr. Burns style. Metaphorically speaking, anyway. Maybe literally too.

So, if all that I’ve just mentioned is your jam, I think you’ll like this book. If you’re the type who just enjoys a straightforward gore-fest, that element is definitely there for you too. No shortage of blood, body parts, or impressively set up garbage disposal arrangements in this one.

A sustained internal monologue following the logic of a sociopath undergoing a psychotic breakdown.

THE LEAST OF MY SCARS is a harrowing feat of narrative, putting the reader into the mind of a serial sadist. This sustained internal monologue follows the logic of a sociopath undergoing a psychotic breakdown after three years of isolation. Alan Ross turns in a masterful performance on the audiobook: 5 hours and 44 minutes of lunatic confession, justification, and self-aggrandizement. Content warning: everything. This is not for the casual horror fan.

Wtf is the vibe

I freaking loved this book. It did something to my soul that creeped me out. But in a great way. I didn’t get the twist at the end until talking
To my husband about the book but it was such a great read