Guys… When I was 20% into Saint the Terrifying, I went and added other books by Mohr to my TBR list. 40% through the book I promised to buy a physical copy for myself. 100% through I was crying with happiness because I realized this is going to be a trilogy. Hell yeah!!!

Good grief, everything about this book hit the sweet spot with me. The writing style, the thematic, the… I don’t know. You read about punks like this and you’ll come away thinking, you know what? I don’t need to fit in! And it’s glorious! I felt envy during a certain scene in this book. There’s a scene when someone (not Saint) trashes a car. Goes full on whammy on a vehicle. While the owner is like “Dude, man, my car!”, Saint and co are just laughing. Laughing at the fact that it’s just a damn car and who cares. No care for materialistic things. I felt envy at that in my heart. Imagine being so… free? feral?… something? that you just don’t care about a car being demolished by bricks.

 

As you may have gathered from the blurb, our main character is Saint. But before he is Saint, we don’t really know his name, at least I don’t think it is uttered in any shape or form. So, the beauty of it all is, we, the reader, get to be there when he earns his new name. And the whole scenario is rather sweet. Who and why calls him Saint. Anyway, Saint gets pulled into “a day” by Got Jokes who says that his band’s gear got stolen, and Got Jokes has a lead – Jesse. So, Saint goes “marching in” (sorrynotsorry) to Jesse’s – it’s not unhinged at all, as he explains, it’s totally hinged – and ends up doing something completely opposite because Jesse is literally at the edge of the abyss, and then Jesse eats Saint’s eye! That’s right. Saint has a fake eye. And Jesse eats it. How and why? Oh, do go on, get the book already and find out yourself! So… we get more leads about who stole the band gear and basically Saint vows to get the gear back. Who and how gets in his way? Again, you’ll have to read for yourself.

During the mad day that leads to all sorts of many other things, we learn about Saint’s childhood. About his mom and his Norwegian dad. And it’s all enough to break your god damn heart! But, Saint has Vikings whispering in his blood and he will do good, he will fight to find joy… He may think he want the Whole Foods life, and his… his… I don’t know what to call them, his “mind trips” give him glimpses of the Whole Foods experience with Green Day Billy. Green Day. Saint hates Green Day.

Anyway!

You know, this is a book of opposites. Saint is any bit as much a saint as he is terrifying. There is as much brutality in the story as there are melt-your-heart, I’m-crying-so-hard-I-can’t-see moments. It’s so harshly black and white as much as it is chaotic and I freaking loved it so much. Even though the whole book is pretty much one big trigger warning sticker, there is simply something about the stark contrast of someone so full of Viking plundering and punk actually showing empathy and love where it counts the most. A magnificent character. A magnificent character with empathy, lovehearts and kindness in his eyes.

All of this, the epic and terrifying character of Saint and the chaos around him and in him, is delivered with a very neat skill of setting beautiful and fitting words one after the other. God damn it, Mohr has some sharp style, and enviable creativity, because some of this stuff is bonkers. It’s so bonkers and so entertaining and so disgusting and so beautiful, all at once!

 

So, anyway… as I said, I loved this book. In fact, Saint the Terrifying is my Book of 2024. It has been a LONG time since I enjoyed reading quite so much. I don’t think it was so much the plot… but the characters in all their rawness and life’s tragedies and the persevering through it all. And the writing. It just mm-mm-mmm… And, it’s not even fantasy! *throws hands up in air in disbelief! I would be willing to give up fantasy forever if every general fiction book managed to kick up a storm in me quite so. I don’t even know how to explain its magic to you. Not really. But it’s something. Something powerful.