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A review by houstonknight
Playground by Aron Beauregard
3.0
Despite how terrible The Slob was, I for some reason decided to read this. I’m kinda glad I did. It’s not great by any means, but I think it’s a lot better than The Slob and shows that Beauregard can actually create characters and conflict which is engaging. I genuinely did enjoy most of the characters in this story and that made their gruesome deaths actually hurt more. I think the concept of this was simple but cool.
Still, Beauregard finds ways to make everything become incredibly corny at a moment’s notice. From Bobby skateboarding Sadie’s mangled corpse down a buzzsaw slide (which I’ll admit is kinda fucking hilarious) to the weird switch of Rock spouting off insanely corny one-liners at the end, I think there’s a lot of tonally jarring stuff here which makes it hard to really take seriously. I mean, as seriously as you can take anything in this genre.
Also, stop putting stupid sex scenes where you talk about vagina crust and shit like that. It adds literally nothing. You could have just implied the sexual abuse or just left it with the chapter where Geraldine goes to her sex mirror maze which is more thematically interesting for her character while also being disgusting. I feel like every hackjob writer thinks that adding SA to their story makes it engaging or whatever, but it doesn’t. Rock being Murder Mommy’s munch doesn’t really do anything. It’s just stupid. ESPECIALLY when you follow it up with the fucked up mirror chapter which was fucking GROSS but EFFECTIVE for the story you are telling.
Anyway, this is worth reading if you are into disturbing stuff IMO. Surprisingly endearing when it wants to be, and the grotesque detail is impactful at times. Falls apart a bit near the end, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this one.
Still, Beauregard finds ways to make everything become incredibly corny at a moment’s notice. From Bobby skateboarding Sadie’s mangled corpse down a buzzsaw slide (which I’ll admit is kinda fucking hilarious) to the weird switch of Rock spouting off insanely corny one-liners at the end, I think there’s a lot of tonally jarring stuff here which makes it hard to really take seriously. I mean, as seriously as you can take anything in this genre.
Also, stop putting stupid sex scenes where you talk about vagina crust and shit like that. It adds literally nothing. You could have just implied the sexual abuse or just left it with the chapter where Geraldine goes to her sex mirror maze which is more thematically interesting for her character while also being disgusting. I feel like every hackjob writer thinks that adding SA to their story makes it engaging or whatever, but it doesn’t. Rock being Murder Mommy’s munch doesn’t really do anything. It’s just stupid. ESPECIALLY when you follow it up with the fucked up mirror chapter which was fucking GROSS but EFFECTIVE for the story you are telling.
Anyway, this is worth reading if you are into disturbing stuff IMO. Surprisingly endearing when it wants to be, and the grotesque detail is impactful at times. Falls apart a bit near the end, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy this one.