Reviews with content warning for Blood - Fantasticland

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven

127 reviews

vixusg's review against another edition

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.

Content Warnings

kimnairn86's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

charadelle's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

My rating of this book is a little more harsh compared to some others as I was working on avoiding a reading slump due to 2 DNFs prior to this one. I was really hoping this book was going to have a lot more spooky aspects to it.

We had the warthogs, but we never got to find out why/who/what/how they came to be. They were really only mentioned in 2-3 interviews and only one interview really detailed anything they were doing. THAT was the interview that I liked the most.

The lack of continuous spooky vibes took away a half star.

I was nervous that this was written in an interview format. My favorite book is written this way, but I also DNFd one that was that style as well. I felt the interview format was a good call for this story. It gave a realistic feel to the story that had me wondering "Did this really happen?" occasioanlly throughout.

Content Warnings

papa_tabby's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I loved this book. Hands down the best chapter is Interview 18. I couldn't stop reading, easily one of the most tense pages I've read in years.

I also love how almost every character is a little psychotic and clearly trying to make themselves sound less bad or downplay their roles in the violence at the theme park. This is something I like that Mike Bockoven does, he doesn't allow the characters to get away with portraying themselves sympathetically, he undermines their claims in either the next chapter or two later.

There's also the mystery of who are the serial killers walking in the park and how much they actually played in escalating the violence.

Content Warnings

forevercamp's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark tense slow-paced

3.5

Content Warnings

_di_'s review

Go to review page

4.0

This was an interesting take on what happens when disaster hits. I can see just how chaos can rain down on the victims of a disaster. I see a glimpse of that every time a hurricane veers our way here in Florida. People seem to lose their common sense when disaster strikes, and will fight for their own survival in every which way they can. If you think that interview format is not for you, I also thought this and enjoyed this read more than I expected to.

Content Warnings