Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Troop by Nick Cutter

44 reviews

that_cow_girl's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective 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? Yes

4.5

This book simultaneously disgusted me and broke my heart. It didn’t take long for things to start happening and then it just kept coming. This book literally wormed its way into my head and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It also referenced Anne of Green Gables twice which is my favorite book, and I thought it was hilarious that THIS was the book it was referenced in. I loved the characters of the Scouts. Each boy was so unique and fascinating. I DID have to skip the part about

Shelley killing his mom’s cat. I can handle a lot of gore and all that, but cats and dogs I can’t handle. I also sobbed my eyes out at the part with the turtle.

if you like nasty books, consider this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Medical trauma, Cursing, Fatphobia, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Police brutality, Torture, Animal death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Violence, Vomit, Blood, Gaslighting, Self harm, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Child death, Eating disorder, Confinement, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Abandonment, Gore, Grief, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

amsswim's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

If you are into horror I highly recommend this one. Atmosphere and story were there for me even listening to the audiobook, gave me chills a few times lol. Def go through the trigger warnings though as needed, the descriptions were detailed. Alternating POVs were really good here too.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Vomit, Gun violence, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Cursing, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Terminal illness, Torture, Body shaming, Animal cruelty, Blood, Bullying, Child death, Death, Grief, Medical content, Murder, Animal death, Body horror, Suicide, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Addiction, Cannibalism, Cancer, Abandonment, and Vomit

soaphest's review against another edition

not sure how to rate this. imo it was a good book but i wouldn’t re-read it or recommend it to anyone, because aside from the fact that i did think it was well-written with a decent story and set of characters it didn’t provide me with anything special or any sense of fulfilment. moreover this book was very heavy on the animal cruelty and some of the sequences were so jarring that had to skip over it because it became very upsetting, and i don’t think this level of detail in the descriptions was necessary aside from providing shock value. ultimately, i did not think that this book was scary or frightening, just sad, disgusting and tragic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Fatphobia, Abandonment, Self harm, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Child death, Gore, Torture, Animal cruelty, Body horror, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Vomit, Racism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Body shaming, Bullying, Toxic friendship, Cannibalism, Xenophobia, and Forced institutionalization

leigha_bugz's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Toxic friendship, Medical trauma, Gore, Cannibalism, Torture, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Gun violence, Violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Fire/Fire injury

cepbreed's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

 Holy shit. Ever since I picked this book up I’ve been thinking about worms. I boarded a flight and as soon as my ears started to gum up my first thought was that it had to be worms. Worms that snuck in there and are curling up, just waiting to spread out and suck the nutrients from my body. Jesus just thinking about the plot of this book gives me goosebumps. Nick Cutter describes every in painstaking detail. This is both a pro and a con. On one hand, I'm completely immersed in the story and I appreciate his creative (and terrifying) analogies and on the other, I am increasingly disgusted with every flip of a page. Speaking of analogies his comparison of human bones jutting out under skin to a trombone in wrapping paper KILLED ME.

Cutter does such a great job characterizing the boys of Troop 52. They make mistakes, they're full of angst and curiosity. The relationships between the boys are complex and I absolutely loved the layers to this. In the first half of the book, I found all of them to be little shits. This continued until the end, but I also realized I was being unfair to these characters. And maybe it was the point to despise them all a little bit.

The structure of this story, traditional chapters intermingled with newspaper articles, interviews, research logs etc was unconventional and I enjoyed it so much. The story wouldn't be the same without it. I read the acknowledgments for once and turns out Cutter was inspired to do this by Stephen King's Carrie, so maybe that will be one of my next reads.

Songs:

• Sick of Being Young - Krooked Kings
• Christmas Kids - ROAR

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Violence, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Abandonment, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Grief, Medical content, Animal death, Body shaming, Animal cruelty, Bullying, and Alcohol

Minor: Excrement and Fatphobia

ladyinverse's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

what a fucking bleak book holy shit. absolutely disgusting. i feel distinctly unclean :')

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Self harm, Medical trauma, Homophobia, Bullying, Gore, Violence, Confinement, Cannibalism, Murder, Cursing, Abandonment, Stalking, Gaslighting, Fatphobia, Death, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Body shaming, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Blood, and Animal death

major tw for very descriptive animal death/cruelty from pages 194-198 specifically about a cat. i couldn't read those pages but just glanced to see when it ended.

princess_marie's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Vomit, Body horror, Gore, Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Self harm

Moderate: Animal death, Blood, Animal cruelty, and Bullying

Minor: Abandonment

randanopterix's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

This book is an absolute fucking nightmare, I mean this in the best way possible. 
Not for even the remotely faint of heart, I usually have a strong stomach for media like this but event I had to avoid the book for a couple of days when my real life got stressful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Emotional abuse, Murder, Suicide, Addiction, Animal death, Child abuse, Torture, Blood, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Body horror, Mental illness, Cannibalism, Child death, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Terminal illness, and Violence

Moderate: Vomit, Abandonment, Confinement, Abortion, Miscarriage, Bullying, Cursing, Death of parent, Dysphoria, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Fatphobia, Grief, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

markedwithanm's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, Torture, Blood, Vomit, Child death, Abandonment, Child abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Self harm, Animal death, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Body horror, and Bullying

gssll_lpz's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Abandonment, Gore, Animal cruelty, Child death, Murder, and Animal death

Moderate: Fatphobia and Bullying