Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

27 reviews

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

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

l0v3lu's review against another edition

dark hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Car accident, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Body horror, Torture, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Drug use

rowans_revenge's review

dark mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

Camp Damascus is an expertly crafted and thoroughly horrifying queer horror novel. It explores themes of identity, religion, science, and found family (as every piece of queer literature should tbh). I was absolutely enthralled form start to finish.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Hate crime, Religious bigotry, Torture, Body horror, Car accident, Gore, and Homophobia

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

josie_reads_books's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Homophobia, Body horror, Car accident, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Physical abuse, Religious bigotry, Torture, and Vomit

cuddlygryphon's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Body horror, Car accident, and Homophobia

Moderate: Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Drug use, Gun violence, and Violence

Minor: Confinement, Medical content, and Vomit

minervacerridwen's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.5

Even though I wanted to like the queer autistic main character, something about the writing made it very hard to connect with this book. It's written in first person and throws in cliché sentences in odd places, making me wonder if this was done on purpose or simply escaped an extra round of editing. The pacing of the story left me with the same question. In the first half it was interesting to see the evolution in the main character from someone extremely faithful to her religion and everything she'd learned, into a critical thinker who is trying to find her place away from the cult, but there was a large chunk after that where I lost interest. The story picked up right at the end and there were some cool concepts, but overall the distance from the main character and the general feel made it so Camp Damascus wasn't the right book for me.

Something that bothered me was that while Rose explicitly considered that these "demons" were creatures from a different universe, she never had a moment's compassion for them. Only at the end did it turn out that they only attacked queer people because they were made to, and that they'd much rather torture the oppressors instead. It felt like a dissonant that she realised they might also "just be animals" but that she didn't even try reasoning with them before finding ways to kill them, at a point where I don't think she'd had the vision of them torturing people in hell (?) yet. But then she still allows them to be on the loose at the end. I think it would have been in character for her to give the question of "what if someone or something is used for evil and needs to be stopped for that evil to stop, while at the same time it's also just some creature" more thought. Especially within the context of people being tortured just for being different.

For a long time I wondered whether the Peter Pan reference right at the beginning would become important, and while it was small, I was very glad to see the image of Rose's shadow engulfing the city at the very end. That was a nice touch.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Car accident, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Religious bigotry, Torture, Vomit, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Gaslighting, Gore, Hate crime, and Homophobia

bookishmillennial's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I enjoy most books for what they are, & I extract lessons from them all. Everyone’s reading experiences are subjective, so I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me on Instagram: @bookish.millennial or tiktok: @bookishmillennial

Rose, an autistic 20-year-old begins having visceral reactions and confusing memory blocks, much to her parents’ weariness and unease. She sees commercials for Camp Damascus, a gay conversion therapy camp which has a 100% success rate and no “reversions”.

I liked the overall messaging of curiosity as a necessary and “good” thing for anyone. I also enjoyed that Rose began creating her own verses rather than subscribing to a religion that essentially gaslighted the fuck out of her ❤️‍🩹 This ultimately wasn’t my favorite work by Chuck Tingle, but I’m still excited to continue reading more from him! 

cw are listed below!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Forced institutionalization, Body horror, Gore, Torture, Gaslighting, and Vomit

stalkingecho's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Gore, Hate crime, Violence, Body horror, and Homophobia

miya37's review

dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.5

A delightfully creepy read. First book in a long time I’ve crushed in one day. Very cathartic read for any queer person with religious trauma. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Hate crime, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Homophobia, and Torture