A review by displacedcactus
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

dark emotional mysterious 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
Tingle is a good but not great writer. There were some really great descriptions and turn of phrase in this book, and then some that were almost amateurishly bad. Over all, though, I did enjoy reading it and I think Tingle has a lot of promise to write these more mainstream horror novels alongside his "Tinglers". I especially think he did a good job of sensitively handling the issue of becoming disillusioned with the religion you grew up in, and I like that we got to see how two different characters experienced that, so people could see there's no wrong way to be "exvangelical."

This is a horror book and it does have some gross and scary moments, but there's also a lot of downtime for character development and problem solving, so it's not a tense, nail-biter kind of read. I could definitely see Chuck going in the direction of my favorite author T. Kingfisher, who anchors her horror with these really loveable characters and the sense that everything is going to turn out alright, even if you have to go through hell to get there.
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