Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

116 reviews

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

chaoticquill's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense medium-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Abandonment, Homophobia, and Gaslighting

kmart_ceo's review

dark hopeful tense medium-paced

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

4.25

It was slow to start, but the pace picked up after a couple of chapters. I loved the trio that is formed later on in the book, so I found it unfortunate we don’t get to see more of them. It’s a really short read, but I enjoyed it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Car accident, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, Gaslighting, and Gore

Minor: Vomit

spaceteapot's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Body horror, Vomit, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Gaslighting

clichemarker's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

4.75

This book felt like Grace Chastity meets Lost Causes of Bleak Creek.
While some parts were a bit predictable,

That twist at the beginning of the love interest dying was crazy.

And that world building! Like you're introduced to these creatures, and they're given a solid set of rules and characteristics, and that shit stayed consistent!
The autism rep is great (being explicitly stated) and you can't help but root for these main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Emotional abuse, and Car accident

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Body horror, Gaslighting, Ableism, and Abandonment

metaphorsandmisc's review

dark funny 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Medical content, Gaslighting, Fire/Fire injury, Religious bigotry, and Homophobia

qteabeans's review

challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

A read for the queer who needs the reminder that there is nothing wrong with being queer. This book is in that sweet space where it is a horror novel but it is mostly about self-love and acceptance. Can you make repairs for past harms you've done? Can you find connection with those you love? You can. All you have to do is literally fight demons. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Religious bigotry, Child abuse, Death, Homophobia, Confinement, Grief, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Forced institutionalization, and Child death

Moderate: Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, and Torture

Minor: Cursing, Alcohol, and Vomit

orizenda's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I feel like I can’t be entirely fair in my opinion of this book right now. I really liked it in the beginning but about halfway thru i had to put it down because of time constraints and lack of motivation and i just kind of lost interest after that. also i’m not religious like at all so that makes things not click as. much with me i think

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Car accident, Gaslighting, Gore, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Death, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, and Body horror

I’m not sure if this counts as a spoiler, but there are instances of bugs being… ejected from people

kristenreads's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and Body horror

Moderate: Car accident, Death, and Fire/Fire injury

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