Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

The Troop by Nick Cutter

32 reviews

smolhandsdan's review against another edition

dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Death, Gore, Animal death, Child death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Body horror, Body shaming, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Child abuse, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Grief, Self harm, Violence, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, and Torture

vyralvyris's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This is the first horror book I've read in a while that I just cannot wait to read again.  Can't wait for the movie to suck.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Self harm, Torture, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Cursing, and Fatphobia

Brutal animal testing, cruelty, and death including insects, a sea turtle, a chimpanzee, a cat, and others I cannot directly recall

rat_leoo's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Body horror, Pandemic/Epidemic, Self harm, Body shaming, Death, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Abandonment, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child death, Child abuse, Confinement, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Vomit

athompson0429's review

dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Super gross, but I loved it! Very well done, and the descriptions are incredible.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Murder, Mental illness, Animal death, Child death, Torture, Bullying, and Gore

Minor: Vomit, Self harm, Medical content, and Child abuse

dan_tee's review

medium-paced

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

2.75

Although I thought Cutters writing was good, Shelly ruined this book for me.

The addition of a pointless "crazed psychopath" killer did nothing but make me wish the book didn't have him in it. He was a boring, uninspired character who provided no more tension than the initial premise, and only served to detract from it. He wasn't believable, and it nearly made me stop reading the book. The more I think about it the more annoyed I am by this character, to the point that his pointlessness ruined an otherwise solidly good book.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, and Mental illness

Minor: Homophobia

kbaker20's review

dark tense fast-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? It's complicated

4.75

This was my favorite read from last year and is my favorite Nick Cutter book so far, having also read The Deep and listened to The Breach. It is a coming of age story that occurs in a short period of time in the most extreme and frightening of conditions.

It starts off with the innocence of a group of boys on an annual camping trip. They are on that cusp of maturity when they are finding who they are and these long held traditions are losing their magic as they progress to the next stage of their lives. Heartbreaking in of itself. Throw in death and isolation and we are facing not just losing belief in Santa, but confronting the harsh reality and cruelty of society, humanity, and life. The boys face these things and each other with no guidance and at the risk of something more horrifying than death.

Probably not a book for the “faint of heart,” lots of body horror with children involved. This is also why I think its horror factor is high. The other reason being it has a factor of relatability in that you either knew that type of kid, were that type of kid, or know the exact moment when you also had to learn those lessons just not in the face of these circumstances. I was on edge the whole book and could not put it down.

Grim endings is a Nick Cutter thing, but this one was a doozy for me because he did a great job of the investment in the characters. Although, perhaps the investment was easier to attain since the main characters were also young and relatable to me. If Lord of the Flies left you unsatisfied in its level of darkness, then this should scratch that itch to the point that you bleed a little.

Happy reading horror fiends! 👹

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, and Child death

skywhales's review

dark emotional sad medium-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

4.0

this didn't like frighten me to my core or anything though it was satisfyingly grotesque but it did make me deeply sad and a little nauseous. i consider that a win kind of 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Animal death, and Gore

Moderate: Violence, Bullying, and Child abuse

hautemessreads's review

dark medium-paced

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

5.0

There are books that cling to you, like an oily muck, foul even after you've scrubbed yourself within an inch of bleeding.
This book is one of those. I am an avid horror novel enthusiast, and I've read some rough things. But I have never read a horror novel that worms it's way inside you quite so vividly. Giving this book five stars was both difficult to do, and also a no-brainer. I think those of you who have read it will understand that dilemma.

We start with a Scout Master and his troop of boy scouts, who have gone to an island for a wilderness trip. A sick man shows up, unexpectedly to the island. What happens next is so true to human nature, so disturbing, so downright realistically written that I struggle to write about it. You'll see.

Cutter does such a phenomenal job building this corner of the world. The characters are so vivid, I could have sworn I was another scout on the trip, a friend, sharing this same heart-wrenching experience.

There are so many things I could say about this novel. Because of that, I'll say less. This is a novel that is so 3D, so real, that you will squeeze your eyes shut to avoid seeing what they're seeing, you'll feel hunger pangs and the immediate nausea that comes from them, you probably won't feel comfortable eating during most of it. **Please, as always, check the TWs before reading.** I don't have many, and there were moments I considered setting it aside. I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad to have known the boys of Troop 52, and I'm glad that you're here, considering knowing them, too.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Pandemic/Epidemic, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, Gore, Cursing, Child death, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Bullying, Animal death, Violence, Body shaming, Grief, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood

woolfian's review

This was a book that popped up on my reading app and I figured “why not?” I went in knowing nothing beyond the description.

I stopped reading at about 60% at which point one of the characters graphically tortures and murders a kitten. I don’t mind reading difficult books about difficult people, but I don’t like reading books that have cruelty for the sake of cruelty with effectively zero character development, which is basically what this was. Even without this, I would have rated the book low for the following reasons.

There's a fine line between being descriptive enough to convey a rich mental image and being so packed with metaphor it becomes distracting. I found Cutter's writing to fall solidly in the latter camp. Every other sentence was a metaphor, and I’d be rich if I had a dollar every time he wrote something akin to "He saw a thing, which reminded him of this thing he saw as a boy" or "He saw a thing, which resembled this other thing that seems unrelated but really isn't.” We get it, Cutter likes description.

But description doesn’t really matter if it isn’t balanced by a strong storyline, which I just didn’t see here. A bunch of mad scientists use worms to create a weight loss medication and release a body-hijacking parasite onto an unsuspecting small town (sorry, remote island). It’s not even unique. It’s like Cutter heard the urban legends about people eating tapeworms to lose weight and was like “I can make a story around that.” And he did, but not a good one.

Throughout the book I kept fighting the feeling that this was basically just an attempt to be like Steven King, and that's probably not fair. But there were lots of similarities--body-hijacking parasites, the ragtag cast of teen characters with shitty parents throwing taunts and jabs, the overly descriptive tone, toeing the line of body horror.....it would be nice to see a book like this that was more stylistically removed from King.  

So in the end, I would have given this 1.5/5 stars because it lacked originality, had a weak story that that it tried to mask under an endless stream of heavy description and predictable teenage banter, and had almost farcical “scientific” interludes (as a scientist, these gave me a good chuckle, so I threw Cutter an extra 0.5 stars).

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Child abuse, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

_ash_mac's review

dark sad 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? No

4.75

Very immersive and hooked me in from page one (which I loved!) Kept me interested throughout and liked the ambiguity of the ending, my first and favourite of Cutter so far! 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Body horror, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Child death, Gore, Medical trauma, and Mental illness