Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

The Troop by Nick Cutter

10 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

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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

doolie's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Animal cruelty, and Child death

houseofjules's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

 Great writing, gory, gory story. Addictive and repulsive. Part of me wished I had looked up TW/CW's (which I will mention below) but overall, a good story.

Everything below could and should be considered spoilers.

I was not very fond of...

the ending, as it was left up for interpretation. However, personally, I would say Max (the lone survivor) was not infected. If anything a more devastation ending would have been an unaliving considering how traumatizing the whole event would have been to Max, survivor's guilt and all that, plus the way he was marginalized by the whole town afterwards.

The TW/CW are...

descriptive animal death & torture, gore, infection, parasitic worms and insect torture, brief sexual content, body mutilation, and on the lower end bullying language. Also one of the kids is a literal psychopath.

I enjoyed the format of this book, as there are interviews and new clippings etc. peppered in between chapters. It's more of a 3.75 The writing and the format are right up my alley, but the contents was at time difficult to get through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Self harm, Child death, Sexual content, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Murder, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence

The book contains

explicit descriptions of a parasitic worm that devastates a group of 14 year old scouts. There's rampant paranoia, body mutilation and truly disguising things occurring. The animal cruelty happens a few times, including a gorilla experiencing this parasite. A kitten being drowned and a sea turtle being killed by 2 of the scouts.

thereadingdude's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Suicide, Blood, Body horror, Child death, and Animal death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury

baphy's review

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-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? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal cruelty, Child death, Body horror, Chronic illness, Animal death, and Blood

proconsulates's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-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? No

5.0

Wow. . . this was a great read. Really well written and the plot was very entertaining. 

Warning - 
If you have a sensitive stomach or a gag reflex that isn't very hard to activate, I might steer away from this book. Even if you don't, you aren't gonna want to be eating while reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Blood, and Chronic illness

Moderate: Animal death and Bullying

Minor: Fatphobia

sexualedward's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Self harm, Torture, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Toxic friendship, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Gun violence, Confinement, Fatphobia, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Homophobia, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Cursing, Sexual content, and Torture

Minor: Alcohol and Bullying

probably_reading_right_now's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

TW: body horror, animal abuse, violence

Is anyone else itchy? Or is it just me? This was my first experience reading Nick Cutter and I’m seriously blown away. This felt like a mix between The Thing, 80’s coming of age movies (the ones where you wonder how the hell such young kids got into such a huge mess), and Lord Of The Flies. While I don’t remember anything QUITE this bad happening in scouts, the way this was written, at least in the world of the book, felt plausible. Except for the military response. Shout out to the book military for having a better response then the CDC and US Gov. combined. The juxtaposition of such beautifully written lines like “It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.” Or “The moon hung in its western altar like the last melancholy guest at a dinner party, who was too lonely to leave.” Next to the graphic horror and violence of the books descension into gut churning madness made an amazing contrast that helped the book highlight the two sides; as the story goes on the characters get more delirious, the writing more unhinged to match. The author made me doubt right along with the characters whether the ‘sickness’, or the other people on the island were more to fear. Rarely ever is a book able to elicit a reaction from me, especially thriller, or horror, but this one pulled an array of reactions and emotions. Even though there was some jumping forward in the time line I never guessed the ending, and normally I’m able to. This was such a great, fast paced read that admittedly wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Violence, and Chronic illness

ionagr's review

dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Chronic illness, Cannibalism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Body horror

cgroff's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, and Chronic illness