Reviews with content warning for Drug use - Fantasticland

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Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven

33 reviews

hoagie's review

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4.0

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devmac724's review against another edition

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

I heard about this book on My Favorite Murder (the podcast) and I was intrigued. I have never read a book like this before and I loved it. The whole concept of this book really made me think about how I would handle myself had I been in that situation. I know this is fiction and for entertainment, but damn this was a thinker.
The interview style of writing was great! It made me want to keep reading to find out what happened next from another person’s perspective.

Brock Hockney’s interview was, in my opinion, the most honest and most upsetting. As I was reading it, I could picture myself there and hearing him talk and the comment about human flesh at the end of the interview shook me. I listen to a lot of true crime podcast and that got me.

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vixusg's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

3.25

An interesting premise. I there's a lot I like and a lot I didn't.

I'll start by saying each story was interesting on their own, it felt like everyone, including the interviewer was an unreliable narrator. I like the chunks of story we got with each interview.

I wasn't much of a fan of only reading the interviews, maybe not my preferred format. That being said, the author grammatical and sentence structure bleed through the characters and pulled me out of the story. It made the characters feel very same-y despite initially being successful in writing them differently in each chapter. That's really what ruined the book for me.

Aside from that, there are many aspects I really enjoyed--the story with the Freaks, the interviewers over arching development, and the book as a think piece on the impacts of social media and withdraw from it.

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paladinpals's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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forevercamp's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense slow-paced

3.5

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lizacorn's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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cscharfway's review

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dark emotional 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? Yes

4.75

This book is really dark, but is a very fascinating look at human nature. It’s an updated telling of Lord of the Flies, except it takes place in a theme park, not a desert island. I like the format of telling the events through interviews, making it seem more shocking as layer-by-layer is added. However, it’s not a format that allows the reader to really bond with the characters or experience their fear deeply so I was a little bit disappointed there. I still don’t quite understand how the character of Brock was led to commit the acts he did and I wish it showed his descent into evil a little more clearly. It’s still a very disturbing book, and the way it was presented felt like this type of event could actually happen, which made it all the more frightening.

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