Reviews tagging 'Death'

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

115 reviews

kristenreads's review against another edition

challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Death, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

minervacerridwen's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

2.5

Even though I wanted to like the queer autistic main character, something about the writing made it very hard to connect with this book. It's written in first person and throws in cliché sentences in odd places, making me wonder if this was done on purpose or simply escaped an extra round of editing. The pacing of the story left me with the same question. In the first half it was interesting to see the evolution in the main character from someone extremely faithful to her religion and everything she'd learned, into a critical thinker who is trying to find her place away from the cult, but there was a large chunk after that where I lost interest. The story picked up right at the end and there were some cool concepts, but overall the distance from the main character and the general feel made it so Camp Damascus wasn't the right book for me.

Something that bothered me was that while Rose explicitly considered that these "demons" were creatures from a different universe, she never had a moment's compassion for them. Only at the end did it turn out that they only attacked queer people because they were made to, and that they'd much rather torture the oppressors instead. It felt like a dissonant that she realised they might also "just be animals" but that she didn't even try reasoning with them before finding ways to kill them, at a point where I don't think she'd had the vision of them torturing people in hell (?) yet. But then she still allows them to be on the loose at the end. I think it would have been in character for her to give the question of "what if someone or something is used for evil and needs to be stopped for that evil to stop, while at the same time it's also just some creature" more thought. Especially within the context of people being tortured just for being different.

For a long time I wondered whether the Peter Pan reference right at the beginning would become important, and while it was small, I was very glad to see the image of Rose's shadow engulfing the city at the very end. That was a nice touch.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

bites_of_books's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

4.0

This is Chuck Tingle's first adult horror novel and I am very pleasantly surprised! We follow Rose Darling, a young woman who is starting to notice that things in her very religious town aren't all that they seem but also that not everything she thought about herself aligns with said community. Her town is known for housing a 100% success conversion camp for queer youth and she hasn't thought twice about this until she starts feeling a certain way about another young woman in her school. Her therapist and parents are incredibly supportive so she's pretty sure she'll be able to figure things out, except her own curiosity is starting to peel back at the given truths around her until she finds.... way more than she expected to find... 

A true horror book that starts a bit slow but escalates to an ending that was deeply satisfying. I did almost wish for it to be multi-POV so that I could see things from the other character's perspectives as well, I'm super curious about their lives! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

the_vegan_bookworm's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Lesbophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty

Insects are heavily involved with th body horror - I would recommend avoiding if that is triggering for you.

sarahemily's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Forced institutionalization, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Car accident

drnerdem's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, and Religious bigotry

zackarinareads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Vomit and Gaslighting

cakehatwombat's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

Gives a supernatural angle that allows for catharsis for both the characters and the audience, which I really liked.

They literally exorcise the demon of 'don't be gay', it's not subtle. It is satisfying, though, having something concrete they can defeat, even if they can't fix fundamentalist Christianity more broadly. They can save themselves and others from at least one horrible thing, y'know? Also all the demons horribly maim and then kill the people running the camp, so like, very affirming.

I liked Rose a lot- I always like curious characters who, like me, would click on every single object or npc in a video game to double check if it's interactable. 

OH, very important:

gay kids all make it out okay in the end! No dead black guy!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Body horror, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Minor: Ableism and Medical content

For a book that centers around a gay conversion camp, the book doesn't talk much about the day-to-day reality or go into really intense detail about the emotional and religious abuse that happens there. Like, it obviously happens, but

the characters don't remember most of what happened. The part that the mc remembers clearly is being tied down and having a demon possess her, which is obviously upsetting, but

the really heavy stuff is avoided. Camps like these are obviously deeply traumatizing, and the characters in the book are clearly fucked up bc of it, but the horror of this book doesn't capitalize on (exploit is too extreme, but do you get what I mean?) the reality of places like this. The horror is supernatural and beatable. TL;DR much less intense than you would assume based on the name and premise. If you can stomach reading articles about actual gay conversion camps then this is nothing. I cannot speak to any type of response from personal experience. For the vomit, the mc

vomits up flies, and while it is described in detail the first time and she is very horrified by it, it happens often enough that she kinda becomes numb to it? She also discovers the cause of it, which helps her deal with it, I think. She vomits up flies bc she's possessed by a demon who is contracted to keep her from thinking gay thoughts, not bc she ingested or incubated any bugs.

Also, there are no tags for bugs or insects, which I'm surprised by? Anyway, there are definitely bugs in the book. If worms or flies are your nopes, then this book is not for you.

popsicleplease's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Homophobia, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Car accident and Fire/Fire injury

arlingtonchamberofgay's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

A loose thread I couldn’t stop pulling on, Camp Damascus is a story for all the queer kids hurt by the church. We are not the monsters they make us out to be, but it doesn’t mean we can’t fight like hell to get our lives back.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Homophobia, and Vomit

Moderate: Death, Forced institutionalization, and Car accident