Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

46 reviews

machewson's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

Wow!  I consider myself to be a fairly slow reader, but I started and finished this book in one day.  It's not particularly long and I could not put it down.  The journey we go on in this book of self acceptance and love is absolutely incredible.  If you only read one book this year or even this decade make it this one.  I don't want to get into any spoilers, but if you are a queer person I can't recommend this book highly enough.  It feels cathartic, loving and incredible from start to finish.  The mystery and suspense absolutely keep you glued to this book until the last sentence.  I know this is rambling but my god this book has me feeling all kinds of ways.  This is very easily going in my top five all time reads.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, Toxic relationship, Biphobia, Grief, Hate crime, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Transphobia, Car accident, Confinement, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Body horror, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Murder

hexentart's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

4.5

*internal screaming*

Absolutely. Horrifying. Evil.

Oh, and demons too.

A gripping story of an evil cult masquerading as a church, the torture and abuse of young queer folk in the name of salvation, and
the power of love.

This book was A LOT and definitely not an easy read (mind your squicks), but it was all worth it. 

The ending was simply poetic and very satisfying. 😏

This was my first read of this author, but I'll definitely be looking into their other horror novels as well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Violence, Torture, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Stalking, Blood, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Slavery, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Medical content, and Car accident

spacerkip's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, and Homophobia

Moderate: Gun violence, Outing, Torture, Ableism, and Medical content

samferree's review

adventurous dark emotional funny tense 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? Yes

4.5

There is not a shred of doubt that Conversion Therapy advocates would do this if they could.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Homophobia, Gun violence, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Slavery, Lesbophobia, Misogyny, Death, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Child death, Hate crime, and Torture

pettywhaler's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Torture, Homophobia, Body horror, Forced institutionalization, Gore, and Child abuse

Moderate: Car accident

ella_babin's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Child abuse, Car accident, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, and Homophobia

vixenreader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

A call to love in the face of self-righteousness and wilful ignorance, this book is horrifying, entertaining, and incredibly loving to those who need it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Murder, Ableism, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Homophobia, Sexism, Outing, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Gore, Emotional abuse, Animal death, Medical content, Fire/Fire injury, Stalking, Gun violence, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Blood, Body horror, Violence, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Car accident, Bullying, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Abandonment

Minor: Alcohol, Drug use, and Misogyny

Be aware of people vomiting bugs out of their mouths, gay conversion therapy, using religion for hate and oppression, and demon imagery.

grey_jayne's review

dark hopeful mysterious tense 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

4.25

Camp Damascus is pretty great. A tale of demonic possession and a conversion camp that gets weirder as it goes. I'd love a highly stylized movie of this. There were some lulls that took me out of it at times, but overall it's a Sapphic autistic horror story with a knockout queer wrath finale so I'm not complaining at all. I highly recommend Mara Wilson's empassioned narration, she is fabulous and well matched to the story. Yaaaasss!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Animal death, Child abuse, Body horror, and Confinement

betsythegremlin's review

adventurous dark inspiring mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Car accident, Medical content, Homophobia, Body horror, Transphobia, Forced institutionalization, Child abuse, and Gaslighting

holleranaboutbooks's review

dark emotional hopeful sad fast-paced

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

5.0

This book is a cathartic battle cry for anyone who has had to shrink themselves and hide parts of who they are for conditional love. Even though this book is a queer horror story at its core, it's ultimately filled with queer joy, queer rage against religious bigotry, and queer resistance. We have always been here and will continue to be here. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and Child abuse