Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Troop by Nick Cutter

77 reviews

tannisz's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Torture, Blood, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Self harm, Pandemic/Epidemic, Medical trauma, and Fire/Fire injury

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

felyn's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad 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

4.0

This book fucked me up. I kept having to take breaks.

There's no on-page villain per se. There's a scientist who's not on page. One of the characters is a young serial-killer-in-training but he's not the antagonist. (He's *an* antagonist, sure, but not *the* antagonist.)

But you can't villainize an insentient parasite.

So you're reading this book about a group of 14-year-old boys from PEI, stranded on a small island for what's supposed to be an ordinary Scouting trip, and the only adult with them is quickly neutralised... and it's horrifying in part because of the descriptions of what the infected characters think and do, but also watch as the entire cast loses their grasp on reality. Wondering who's going to die next and how, because it's not just one thing that can kill you, it's exposure, it's starvation or dehydration, it's the parasite, it's the other humans, it's getting injured, it's falling off a cliff... And you as the reader is still there watching all this, wondering who is going to die next and who, if anyone, survives.

You get snippets of what the people on the mainland (er, back on the main island? back on PEI.) are doing and going through, but they are footnotes against the body of the main story.

Plus there's a lot of gross descriptive text in general that I am just not here for, but I'm sure others wouldn't have any issues with. You'd think that having aphantasia, this wouldn't bother me so much BUT NO.

Anyway, I'm going to go binge some sex pollen alien erotica now as a palate cleanser. Then I'll probably go read The Handyman Method, because I'm a masochist.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Animal death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Fatphobia, Medical content, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Self harm

jamiee_f's review

dark mysterious tense 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

2.0

This book was so hyped up, I was prepared to love it! A supernatural/menacing force collides with a boy scout troop on a remote island? Oooh!

However, what this actually ended up being was a gross lord of the flies retelling with more animal abuse and more sociopathic boys. Not sure what the takeaway was supposed to be with this story....

it truly was just a bunch of fucked up kids torturing each other while they become infected with the insatiable hunger the government accidentally set loose.

there were some redeeming qualities with the open ended final portion of the book. I liked how maybe the last boy is returning to the island because he DOES have the hunger, but more likely he is just hungering for the last time he ever knew normalcy.

I just wished for more story, more character motivation, less gore and pointless gross.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Medical trauma, Death, Abandonment, Violence, Bullying, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, Stalking, Gore, Body horror, Murder, Toxic friendship, Physical abuse, Child death, and Blood

camifloyd's review

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Medical trauma, and Animal death

mccormicke2's review

dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Self harm, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Animal cruelty, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Confinement

Minor: Eating disorder

mewpasaurus's review

challenging dark tense medium-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

4.5

Normally, I'd be keeping (and re-reading) any book I rate this highly, however, Nick Cutter's The Troop is an exception; it's too gruesome and descriptive when it comes to wanton animal cruelty. It's incredibly well written and engaging and it definitely does body horror well (something I find hard to find in written works), but I just don't care to re-read accounts of squishy, gross torture of animals and the whiny, teenage narratives of the main characters.

If you like body horror, you'll probably find this is a good/fast read. It's also worth noting that while the characters aren't necessarily likeable, they are not two dimensional and do seem to be complex in the way I would say most pre-teens/teenagers tend to be, which made it more believable.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Vomit, Child death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Animal death, Homophobia, Murder, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Violence, Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Gore, Body horror, Toxic relationship, Body shaming, and Death

jennaraetions's review

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

5 stars simply because what the fuck

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Medical content, Self harm, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Vomit, Physical abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Violence, Blood, Mental illness, Murder, Torture, Fatphobia, Animal death, Bullying, Cannibalism, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Grief

madelinequinnee's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

5.0

So this is the second book i’ve read about worms this year, so that’s fun. 

This was so sad, I didn’t expect to feel so connected to the characters by the end, but i was actually heartbroken by Newt’s death in the end, and Max being the only one left but never being able to return to normality was just devastating. 

The horror was so effective in this, the descriptions of the boys’ demise was so visceral, and the things that Shelley did to his troop mates made me feel so horrid, he was a great hidden evil character, and I was pretty damn happy he died in the end 

Overall I think this is a solid contamination horror book 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Blood, Cursing, Gore, Violence, Animal cruelty, Grief, Pandemic/Epidemic, Toxic friendship, Death, Medical trauma, Vomit, Self harm, and Terminal illness

_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! 

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Content Warnings

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