Reviews with content warning for Blood - Cirque Berserk

This is a fun and quick slasher read full of gore and technicolor and set with dual timelines in the 80s and present day in a circus themed carnival. This book doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t skimp out on the slasher moments. This book is perfect for a summer horror read and I love the references to horror movie tropes this book discusses and leans into.

It reminds me a lot of AHS: 1984 and any number of cheesy slasher movies. There is one small twist in here but otherwise this book is a pretty straightforward and fun read so don’t go in with expectations of huge thrills and you should be able to enjoy this popcorn flick of a book.

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ankellogg's review

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dark tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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corikane's review

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adventurous dark fast-paced

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

4.5

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alilbitofmonica's review

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dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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cat12345's review

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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nickoliver's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

In some ways, this book gave me exactly what I expected - a bunch of stupid teens going to an abandoned carnival with a grisly history and subsequently getting brutally murdered off one by one. However, despite being only 167 pages long, it still managed to take me by surprise in other aspects.

At first, it wasn’t all too impressive. It switched between two different timelines - 1989, where the first massacre took place, and thirty years later in 2019 with the aforementioned plot line of a bunch of teens apparently never having seen a horror movie in their lives and going to a creepy carnival. There were also several POVs, from both victims and murderers. While I did find that intriguing, especially spending time in the head of people whose deaths you immediately got to witness, it also made it a bit too chaotic at times, for it jumped around a bit too often.

Additionally, the victims were lacking in characterization. They died before I even got a feel for them, so seeing them get murdered was less emotional and intense than it could’ve been. At most, they fit a single stereotype, like the nerd, the bad guy, and the jock. (Really made me feel like I was on the set of a bloodier version of The Breakfast Club lmao.) Then again, the book was probably simply too short to flesh out every single character, since there were about a dozen of them. And it was clear that Guess didn’t really care about the stupid teens as much as she did about the murderers and their motives.

At the end of the day, though, I still would’ve liked the murders to be a bit more intense, the hunt a bit longer. As it was, the teens were dead before I even got the chance to blink. In true slasher fashion, though, they did die brutally, be it by hanging from a Ferris wheel, getting their throats slashed, or being stabbed multiple times. There was certainly a bit gore in the story, which was still kind of fun.

Lastly, for a book with less than 200 pages, there were way too many spelling errors. It was honestly kind of embarrassing, and a bit annoying. I even found one in the synopsis on the back of the book. Did it land on no editor's desk before being published? I’ve read un-beta’d fanfiction with less obvious mistakes than that.

However, despite all of my grumbling, I did overall really enjoy it. Because like I said, I was taken by surprise in spite of the seemingly stereotypical slasher synopsis. Thanks to its heaviest focus being on the murderers and their relationship with each other, plus the fact that they were more fleshed-out than the people they murdered, I was rooting for them rather than the victims. It was an interesting, thrilling twist on the slasher genre. I mean, you don’t usually watch slashers with the urge to see the bad guy win (unless you're into that), though the lack of a final girl did make it steer away even more from feeling slasher-y.

I also read the book very quickly, in one sitting on a random Sunday evening. I’d planned to just get a little bit into it, but then I got hooked immediately and couldn’t stop until I was finished with it. It had quite the speed to it that it didn’t let go off right up until the end. I kinda want to read more books like this now.

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readingsofaslinky's review

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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the_grimdragon's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

4.0

"Beware the Cirque on Solstice Night
Nine souls are needed for sacrifice
Behind these gates lay dread and fear
Doomed are those who enter here."

Part of Unnerving Magazine’s Rewind or Die series, Cirque Berserk roller skated into my heart with slashery delight & 80's pop culture references that soared across the neon splattered pages!

Jumping around from the 80's to present-day, Cirque Berserk appears to be a decrepit carnival from the outside, but inside it's home to a group of teenagers who made a dangerous deal 30 years before, one where they will remain their current age forever.

::shudder:: Stay a teenager forever? NO FUCKING THANK YOU!

Neon signs & carousels, haunted houses & roller rinks, rituals & shitbag abusive father's, urban legends & subverted tropes. Needless to say, some gnarly shit happens!

Fucking hell this was good!

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