Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - Cuckoo

Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

2 reviews

bloomandgloomco's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

A truly nasty (in the best way!) body horror revolving around a group of LGBTQIA+ teens trying to survive a conversion camp in the middle of the desert.
The horror was done exceptionally well, I am not often grossed out by books but this one got me more than a few times.
On that note- I wasn’t always grossed out in a good way.
The following knocked my review down to 3 stars:
- Rampant fatphobia. At first I assumed this was intentional and would serve some kind of purpose, but ultimately I think it was unnecessarily cruel for really no reason.
- Way too horny. There is so. much. sex. happening all of the time in this book.
I actually laughed out loud a couple of times because it was so ridiculous. If the characters weren’t boning eachother, they were thinking about it in unnecessarily graphic detail. Remember- the characters are all teenage kids and are literally fighting to survive. Love finds a way I guess? I was just a lil grossed out…if you don’t want to read about a bunch of kids getting freaky (also always when they’re on their periods, for some reason?!) maybe skip this one.

I also found the large cast of characters difficult to keep up with; jumping between POV’s and past/future timelines I was often confused who’s who and what was going on.

The horror is horroring here, but I think a bit more editing and a lot less boinking would’ve helped make it a more enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the ARC!

Content Warnings

paracosim's review

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adventurous dark 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? Yes

4.0

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

So, to preface this, let me make it clear that I enjoyed Cuckoo FAR more than Manhunt. The beginning was incredible, the horror was much better this time around, and there was no Fran. (Thank fucking g-d, there was no Fran. My entire book club detested her LOL.) And also the cover? Stellar.

That said, many of the same issues I had with Manhunt are ones I had with Cuckoo.

I’m beginning to think Felker-Martin and I just don’t mesh well, stylistically; I dislike how short each POV is, making the book feel like a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive story. Just like in Manhunt, she absolutely fails at establishing the passage of time. It mentions around 65% in that the kids have been at the camp for literal weeks…but there is nothing suggesting that. If anything, it felt as though they’d been there for a few days. A week would be generous. I did a mental double take when I read the line specifying how much time had passed. Nothing felt in any way grounded in the progression of events.

There was quite a bit of whiplash at the start of the book, with characters being introduced left and right with little to no breathing room. And just when you think you’re settling in and have figured out who is who, there’s someone new. Each POV begins with action and at times it was hard to differentiate between the experiences of the characters. Don’t get me wrong, the action was great—Felker-Martin’s strength lies in heavy action scenes. The finale of Manhunt was incredible and she’s managed to improve her skills even more in Cuckoo.

Another strength of hers is in her characters. There are a ton of people to root for. Even some of the kids you don’t initially expect to like, you’ll find yourself on the edge of your seat with worry over by the end. There were some moments at the end that actually made me tear up.

Which brings me to my next point: the kids.

*Commercial voice:* Hello there! Are you one of those lucky readers who read Steven King’s “It”? Have you spent the last thirty-eight years desperately craving more of the child orgy scene you happened upon in the crisp autumn of October 1986? Why, then look no further than Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin, where you can read bizarro drug-induced child orgy scenes in droves!

Okay in all seriousness, I don’t mind reading about teens having sex. Kids are having sex whether we like it or not; that’s just a fact. What I do mind is (and this will sound very petty)…Gretchen Felker-Martin’s sex scenes lmfao. There is something about them that makes me deeply uncomfortable. A prime example is from Manhunt (tw for rape here), when

Robbie rims Fran’s unwashed ass while Beth lies in post-rape agony, bleeding and crying, like five feet away. Like…girl?? You haven’t had access to toilet paper in literal weeks, and you’re letting this stranger tongue you while your purported best friend suffers mere feet away from you?

GIRL?? Absolute insanity.

Cuckoo has the same weird, gratuitous sex. It has it in droves. I’m not above begging for it to stop.

Another thing it has, is racial slurs. I’m 99.9% certain Felker-Martin is white, and I would consider myself racially white in the US, so maybe this is just my whiteness speaking, but the fact that there are so many racial slurs written plainly makes me…a little uneasy. You are supposed to dislike the characters using them and it’s explicitly a bad thing, which makes me FAR less likely to point fingers and scream, “racist!” when a malicious character saying heinous things is in no way indicative of the author’s own views. (In other words, I really don’t think she’s a racist.) But I think it should be stated so readers know what they’re getting into. There are racial slurs used in this book. Specifically anti-Japanese, anti-Vietnamese, and anti-Mexican ones.

Now onto the body horror. Can I say, yes please? Give me more, queen? The body horror (and the horror in general) in Cuckoo was exquisite. It was decent in Manhunt, but she’s really upped the ante this time and boy did it pay off. There were scenes and descriptions that made me actively sick to my stomach. (This is a good thing.)

So, did I enjoy Cuckoo? Yes and no. Will I read more of Gretchen Felker-Martin’s books? Absolutely, if only for more excellent horror. And I will be cringing at the weird sex scenes all the way through.

Content Warnings

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