Going to be honest, if the killer at the end had been revealed to be his mother, and the whole thing with his dad was just a ruse she used to keep suspicion off of her, the story might almost be decent. It would still be boring as all hell, but the idea behind it would be solid.
I think the whole shit side plot with the father was thrown in there as some poor attempt at a twist in the story. The author was like: "Ohh! I'll build it up so everyone thinks it's Jackson's father, but instead it'll be my Insane Killer Girl OC™"
I was honestly originally expecting the call from Dan to be actually the Dad to lure Jackson out of the house, and like he gets to Dan's house and like Dan is like "Hey, man, whatcha doing here?"
And Jackson was like: "What do you mean, you called me over?"
And Dan was like: "Dude, our phone has been out all day." or something like that
I particularly like how he made a big deal out of his mom lying about being at his nonexistent aunt’s house at the climax even though it was completely irrelevant to everything.
I don't know if I should be glad that there wasn't much focus on the lame slasher Mary Sue killer, who has a tragic past and is perfect in everyway, or annoyed that she was randomly tacked on to the end as some kind of lame, nonsensical twist.
Meanwhile, grass is green, Nelson Mandela didn't die in prison and Berenstain Bears isn't spelt as Berenstein Bears.