A review by knightressx
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • 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

Cuckoo is horrific, grisly, utterly unapologetic and incredibly evocative. The prologue is amazing and it raised my expectations for the rest of the novel that were unfortunately not reached. 

The premise of Cuckoo: seven queer kids are abandoned in a remote conversation camp in Utah for the summer by their parents, is nightmarish on its own and the addition of an evil creature that seeks to claim their bodies only heightens the tension.

The abduction scenes prior to the arrival to and several scenes within the camp are immensely difficult to stomach, as the characters experience: abandonment, emotional abuse, graphic physical abuse, racism, fatphobia, homophobia, transphobia and dehumanization. Gretchen Felker-Martin’s descriptions are unflinching and-at times-quite disgusting and the aspects pertaining to the inevitable body horror are also intense and vivid. 

The multiple viewpoints of Cuckoo sometimes made it difficult to keep track of every character, though the audiobook’s different narrators did provide more of a distinction. The representation was also very well done, though with so many characters, some inevitably had stronger impacts upon the story than others. 

The amount of graphic sexual content within Cuckoo also made me uncomfortable, as the characters are teenagers and some of the scenes seemed unnecessary. The pacing of the story-which is divided into about seventy percent focusing upon the time spent in the camp and thirty percent taking place fifteen years later-is also slightly uneven and made wish there was more of a balance between the two timelines. 

The various narrators did an excellent job bringing: their characters, the malicious “counselors,” the husband and wife in charge of the camp and the monstrous Cuckoo, to life. I’m not sure if I’m the right reader for Gretchen Felker-Martin’s future works, but I am grateful to Macmillan Audio, Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for providing access to this ALC. 
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