A review by cepbreed
The Troop by Nick Cutter

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

5.0

 Holy shit. Ever since I picked this book up I’ve been thinking about worms. I boarded a flight and as soon as my ears started to gum up my first thought was that it had to be worms. Worms that snuck in there and are curling up, just waiting to spread out and suck the nutrients from my body. Jesus just thinking about the plot of this book gives me goosebumps. Nick Cutter describes every in painstaking detail. This is both a pro and a con. On one hand, I'm completely immersed in the story and I appreciate his creative (and terrifying) analogies and on the other, I am increasingly disgusted with every flip of a page. Speaking of analogies his comparison of human bones jutting out under skin to a trombone in wrapping paper KILLED ME.

Cutter does such a great job characterizing the boys of Troop 52. They make mistakes, they're full of angst and curiosity. The relationships between the boys are complex and I absolutely loved the layers to this. In the first half of the book, I found all of them to be little shits. This continued until the end, but I also realized I was being unfair to these characters. And maybe it was the point to despise them all a little bit.

The structure of this story, traditional chapters intermingled with newspaper articles, interviews, research logs etc was unconventional and I enjoyed it so much. The story wouldn't be the same without it. I read the acknowledgments for once and turns out Cutter was inspired to do this by Stephen King's Carrie, so maybe that will be one of my next reads.

Songs:
  • Sick of Being Young - Krooked Kings
  • Christmas Kids - ROAR
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