Reviews with content warning for Medical trauma - Fantasticland

Wow. Dark, painful and intense. A venture into the depravity that lies just under the surface of humanity, and can be drawn out when there's the temptation of getting away with it. Only slight downside is the sheer number of names that are used for repeating characters. Absolutely LOVED this read.

Edit: 5 stars. Whenever anyone asks me to recommend a book I mention this. It's only fair to give it 5 stars.

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jwicks's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

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cassie_04's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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rumblebree's review

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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3.75

Finished reading: November 3rd 2023

“To think our young people are capable of what we saw chills the blood for a very long time.”

It's true that I don't tend to read a lot of proper horror titles, but I saw Fantasticland mentioned and I couldn't resist adding it to my TBR. I have a weak spot for an amusement park setting, and there was just something about this premise that sounded both terrifying and absolutely fascinating. I have to say this before I continue though: this book isn't for everyone and you definitely have to suspend your disbelief to be able to get a positive reading experience. If you are able to do that, make sure to brace yourself for a extremely twisted ride! Seriously, this basically reads like Lord Of The Flies on acid, but set in an amusement park after a hurricane hits. I wasn't expecting the non fiction vibe of this story though; Fantasticland is written in a way that makes you feel like you are reading the result of an investigation by a journalist. This journalist helps narrate the story, although the plot mainly consists in first-person accounts of people present at the park. The interviews are presented in a way that slowly reveals just how bad things got before they were finally rescued... And boy, things get properly twisted and graphic long before that final page. Torture, mutilation and even cannibalism; nothing is too much in this story. What I did find a bit lacking was the explanation of how things escalated so quickly after the hurricane hit... I was expecting something more elaborated, or at least more of an answer to that question. That said, I can't deny that this was a perfect Halloween read.

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bookmarks_and_backbeats's review

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dark medium-paced

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

3.0

I would say this book was very “middle of the road” for me. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. The interview-style format was good, but I found myself having to flip back to remind myself of some of the other characters being referenced. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if it were either more of an ensemble with shorter chapters that we would keep coming back to, or if we would have seen the whole story play out from start to finish from one person’s perspective, then the next, etc. it felt like a strange choice to me to end one character’s story and then pick up at that same point somewhere else. I know other books do it well, but this just felt disjointed to me.

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bookishloz's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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catsy2022's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.5

Rating: B-

Fantasticland is a retrospective fictional horror novel presented as a series of interviews by Adam Jakes, a reporter doing a piece on the fiasco that was Fantasticland. During the late 2010s, Fantasticland, a theme park built in Florida in the 1970s, was hit by Hurricane Sadie and isolated from rescue services, who deemed the park livable due to the supplies that were reported to be in the park.

I think this book is probably best digested as audio, due to the formatting of the story. It unravels through successive interviews from people who were outside the park to those on the edge inside and then finally with the leaders of each faction in the park. I personally found the book a bit of a slog to get through and I think the structure might have been better if we worked backwards from inside the park to outside, rather than hearing the same story over and over again from the interviewees.

I wasn't particularly shocked or moved by the story, but I found the speed at which people resorted to violence a bit unbelievable, especially when the overall message of the book is that modern people can't cope without social media. (So they turn to violence and tribalism.)

It was fine to read, I would probably only recommend it if you wanted to read another book like World War Z, and if it was real, you'd probably hear about it on a true crime podcast.

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