A review by glenn24
The Troop by Nick Cutter

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense 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? Yes

4.0

I honestly really liked this book! It’s a sort of really interesting hybrid of “Lord of the Flies”, “Cabin Fever” and “The Ruins”, which I like a lot!

In terms of plot pacing, I feel that “The Troop” had a medium-to-fast pace. It was not a drag, but it also didn’t go by so quickly that I didn’t know what was going on, or that things felt rushed.

As an avid fan of body horror, I found that the genetically engineered tapeworms that serve as the “monster” for this novel, and the descriptions of their effects on the bodies and psyches of infected characters, were the most horrifying aspect of the novel (as was most likely the author’s intention); that being said, if you are sensitive to intense and graphic descriptions of gore/goop, this is not the book for you. Other trigger warnings I would add for this novel would be: the inclusion of a homophobic slur, fatphobia/bullying, and (and this is a major trigger warning) animal cruelty/death.

Speaking of animal cruelty, we should talk about Shelley, the antagonist of the latter half of the novel. I feel as if we could have done without the POV flashbacks to him brutalizing and killing innocent animals, as I felt it was a bit too much, and I found myself actually skipping one part because I couldn’t handle it (hint to which part: I am a cat owner). I’m not saying all animal cruelty and death should be erased from the book, but I feel that it is a horror trope that this book too often relied on. I would have kept Max and Newton killing the turtle, as well as the shearwater flashback, as those are important parts in terms of theme and character development, and perhaps one of Edgerton’s experiment videos to keep the emphasis that the worms are a man-made threat, but I would have gotten rid of everything else. 

I also feel that Shelley should not have had such a major role in the novel, as I felt that the various descriptions of him manipulating/killing his troop mates served as a “detour” from the worm-horror that was so prevalent in the first half. Anytime there was a chapter (or stretch of chapters) dedicated to Shelley, I found myself wondering when we would get back to the worms, and if this novel even needed a human antagonist. Instead of having one character that is against all of the other characters, I feel like it would’ve been more effective to show the group as a whole turning against one another and thus descending into chaos. The parts focusing on the worms and their degradation of the body and mind are really the truly scary parts of the novel, and I found parts focusing on Shelley to be somewhat annoying, as they aren’t as scary and I found his role to be unneeded.

Despite these flaws, I find that The Troop is a great horror novel. Intense, graphic, and provocative, I feel that this book, as well as Cutter himself, have the capability to rank among other works and authors famous in the genre.
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