Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - The Troop

I went into this with high hopes, only to get a quarter of the way through and wonder why I was bothering. This book isn’t scary, it’s just…gross. Probably just a personal preference, but I’m looking for a horror book with dread and terror, not just body horror and animal mutilation.

The worms as a concept could have been interesting, but they’re either a threat, or they aren’t.

Shelly ends up letting hundreds of them loose into the ocean at one point and we’re supposed to believe a chemical dump caught EVERY worm or fish that ate them?

The cast is a dull mismatch of stereotypes. Meat headed mean jock, ill tempered delinquent, the follower, the cruel “psycho”, and the fat kid (which the author will remind you, REPEATEDLY of. You will not forget that Newton is fat). All I got from this book is apparently young boys are two steps away from losing their minds and turning to cruelty? Very lord of the flies I guess.

Shelley was absolutely not needed. This felt like a tacked on extra threat because the worms themselves weren’t “scary” enough, so there needed to be some unhinged…mastermind, apparently? He was a very methodical psycho for being what, 14? Managing to play every adult and other kid like a fiddle. There’s multiple instances of animal mutilation, but the

graphic six(ish) page interlude of Shelley’s recollection of killing a kitten and getting aroused over it wasn’t needed.

At all.

And, if you’re curious, there’s over 20 mentions of “piss” or bladders or peeing in this book. Not sure why the author felt we needed that, but it was frequent enough that it was kinda distracting lol.

Content Warnings

voxlunae's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Man, this book is fucking gross. So disturbing sometimes. I grimaced through whole scenes, several times. However, I really enjoyed the writing and I burned through it in two sittings. I always advocate for more diverse characters and strong female characters, but given that this is about Boy Scouts and inspired by Lord of the Flies, the homogeneity isn't surprising. I give it a pass. Really taut storytelling, a horrifying threat, some heartbreaking scenes, and all the skin-crawling disgust you could ask for.

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bites_of_books's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

I buddy read this with a friend and I'm very glad that I did because I needed to talk about it with someone as I read certain parts of this book. We follow a group of boys and their scout leader as they face the horrors of someone showing up at their camp with some strange illness. The things that happen in the cabin and then in the woods are brutal and really make the kids do things that no one should ever have to do. Some of the kids try their best to act rationally while others... well, they choose to do things differently. I will not say much because this book should be experienced without knowing too much about what's happening.
Please check content warnings, do not eat while eating, and just read with care.

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actuallyirina's review against another edition

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dark sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Personally, not for me. I found the horror to be more sad than scary, and I felt pretty frustrated by the end of it. Give it a try, it's definitely last paced, but I dunno I don't think I'll be picking up another from this author anytime soon .

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fionagerman's review

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fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.0

This was such a good book but there were whole paragraphs that I just had to skip over due to graphic descriptions of body horror and animal torture.
They did need to be in there to show the characters in a more interesting way but boy am I glad it's fiction.
A very interesting way of displaying the facts of the story through the use of articles, transcripts etc.

I was going to read this whole eating my lunch one day but decided not to.

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