Reviews tagging 'Eating disorder'

The Troop by Nick Cutter

55 reviews

itsjustgrumpy's review

dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Cutter's descriptions are both vile and illuminating. Body horror with a spotlight on it to highlight every squirming maggot and fleshy lesion. The man does it so right.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Body horror, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Self harm, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Blood, Eating disorder, Murder, Violence, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cannibalism, Child death, Mental illness, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Abandonment and Vomit

Minor: Bullying

mccormicke2's review against another edition

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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Self harm, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Animal cruelty, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Confinement

Minor: Eating disorder

arealpup's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I feel like this book could easily have been a 5 star book if the cast didn't feel quite so... desolate? When I say the main focus of the book was the plot, I mean that. It's a good, well rounded plot with a fantastic beginning, middle, and end, but I didnt quite feel for the characters the same way I would most books. I felt as though I barely knew the characters, and often mixed the crew up, however maybe it was purposefully done by the author to save you from feeling so much remorse and discomfort that came from the more graphic scenes. It wasn't until the last few chapters that I felt I started to really know two of them, but I felt the development and introductions could have been a lot more apparent. Still, this book certainly kept me on my toes, and wanting to know how things would be resolved. The graphic story telling was fantastic, and Im very happy with how it ends. I enjoy the more realistic approach to such a disgusting story, almost painting a very plausible reality.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, Eating disorder, Murder, Animal death, Body horror, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Torture, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Eating disorder and Vomit

There's a very graphic scene of a kitten death that is toward the middle end of the book. It's a chapter that only really describes more of a characters upbringing and personality. If this is something that is triggering or hard to read, I'd recommend skipping to the chapter ahead.

houseofjules's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

 Great writing, gory, gory story. Addictive and repulsive. Part of me wished I had looked up TW/CW's (which I will mention below) but overall, a good story.

Everything below could and should be considered spoilers.

I was not very fond of...

the ending, as it was left up for interpretation. However, personally, I would say Max (the lone survivor) was not infected. If anything a more devastation ending would have been an unaliving considering how traumatizing the whole event would have been to Max, survivor's guilt and all that, plus the way he was marginalized by the whole town afterwards.

The TW/CW are...

descriptive animal death & torture, gore, infection, parasitic worms and insect torture, brief sexual content, body mutilation, and on the lower end bullying language. Also one of the kids is a literal psychopath.

I enjoyed the format of this book, as there are interviews and new clippings etc. peppered in between chapters. It's more of a 3.75 The writing and the format are right up my alley, but the contents was at time difficult to get through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Vomit, Self harm, Child death, Sexual content, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Murder, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence

The book contains

explicit descriptions of a parasitic worm that devastates a group of 14 year old scouts. There's rampant paranoia, body mutilation and truly disguising things occurring. The animal cruelty happens a few times, including a gorilla experiencing this parasite. A kitten being drowned and a sea turtle being killed by 2 of the scouts.

curtiswastaken's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

 yeah it's a pretty gross book, but done with an odd amount of care and attention that keeps it from fetishizing the violence. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Cannibalism, Pandemic/Epidemic, Toxic friendship, Self harm, Gore, Eating disorder, and Child death

_ash_mac's review against another edition

dark sad fast-paced

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

4.75

Very immersive and hooked me in from page one (which I loved!) Kept me interested throughout and liked the ambiguity of the ending, my first and favourite of Cutter so far! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Body horror, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Child death, Gore, Medical trauma, and Mental illness

mechtimber's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Vomit, Eating disorder, and Self harm

Minor: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Cursing, and Excrement

alex_e_liddiard's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Self harm, Fire/Fire injury, Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Body horror

j_m_alexander's review

dark slow-paced

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

1.75

 NOPE! - nope, nope, nope.

Body horror, animal harm, and overly descriptive scenes written with the explicit intention of raising the bile straight up your gullet. Can't say the writing is itself is bad exactly, so thus not a 1-star, but oof I REALLY did NOT like this book. This is a straight up book of grotesqueries that tries to toy with ideas of psychological terror, that I just didn't find successful within the context of the relentless squelching bodily fluid wallowing imagery. The premise is what drew me in, but after a while it seemed like the boys slid back into caricatures (it's like Cutter said "have your read The Body or Lord of the Flies, and/or seen the respective movies? -- it's pretty much some of those kids with a touch of a more youthful and messier American Psycho") and the order of operations were fairly predictable I found.

In reflection I recognize that what I look for most from horror these days is building tension and I am not as big of a fan of overt body horror, so this is maybe just the opposite of my current preferences. I have specifically identified that possession stories are something I am just NOT into, and really this is a possession story, a different take on possession, but possession none-the-less. Intermittently Cutter broke in with after-the-fact reports and testimonies, he mentioned being inspired by Carrie, and I can't decide if these helped or hurt the book; often they worked as a pallet cleansers from all the revulsion by inserting plain reportage, but they also depleted momentum... not sure if the trade off was worth it. I did find myself wanting to stop at points so maybe I would have made this a rare DNF if not for those breaks in the story, but then again maybe I would have sped through it instead of the stopping and starting as I ended up doing, making the choppiness even more pronounced.

Carrie apparently was an inspiration of sorts, but that book was punchier and King managed development with economy, while this book seemed sickeningly bloated, squishy, and somewhat flat. The more direct King comparison to make would be Dreamcatcher, which was also not my cup of tea, but in hindsight (and comparatively) is not so bad, certainly I think it's a better take on the basic premise of this other type of possession in the context of a group of friends in a secluded setting.

If you like detailed descriptions of slow horrific death and have a strong stomach (or enjoy the sensation of wanting to toss your cookies), then maybe this is a good book for you! Not a good book for me as it turns out.

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Self harm, Terminal illness, Violence, Body horror, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Medical trauma, Medical content, Cursing, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Grief, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, and Physical abuse

voxlunae's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Man, this book is fucking gross. So disturbing sometimes. I grimaced through whole scenes, several times. However, I really enjoyed the writing and I burned through it in two sittings. I always advocate for more diverse characters and strong female characters, but given that this is about Boy Scouts and inspired by Lord of the Flies, the homogeneity isn't surprising. I give it a pass. Really taut storytelling, a horrifying threat, some heartbreaking scenes, and all the skin-crawling disgust you could ask for.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Body horror, Body shaming, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, and Self harm

Moderate: Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Eating disorder, Fire/Fire injury, and Homophobia

Minor: Abandonment, Bullying, Confinement, Cannibalism, and Cursing