Trying to share a quote without sharing spoilers...
"It was just a trick. That's all the thing was. Tricks and lies, all of them cheap, all of them ugly. They only worked because nobody cared about the truth."
Feeling this right about now, in our putative nonfictional world.
so-soI liked this one better than I liked Manhunt, but Felker-Martin doesn't present a very well developed, cohesive idea of who the villain is, which, given the nature of the main antagonist, might be a silly thing to write. The characters are more developed in this one than in Manhunt, and I cared more about what happened to them, but I still found the novel wordy overall and tedious at points, especially in the second half. #ToB25 longlist
Current situation. Reading has stalled, but I'm getting a great belly massage as Camille makes biscuits on me.
Camille just got home from a dental cleaning, and she's all about the pets as she comes off of her anesthesia, which means I might need to hang out and give her some snuggles while hopefully finally finishing the tagged.
pickAnother one from the #ToBlonglist. I didn‘t enjoy Manhunt at all, but thought I‘d give this a go anyway and it was much better.
I actually don‘t mind the body horror - it doesn‘t gross me out at all but this was still rather OTT and overwrought for me. It‘s just one thing after another and all a bit much. Bury Your Gays from the longlist did a similar thing but in a subtler way, but maybe that‘s the whole point of this book?!
pickAfter Manhunt, I wasn‘t sure about GFM (I found it one note), but she proved to me with book 2 that she can really write. She tells the harrowing, capital H Horror story of a conversion camp here and writes the characters with more depth than the typical horror book. And I kept seeing villain pastor Eddie as looking just like Mike Johnson for some reason.
#TOB longlist
pick“They‘d made a mistake. They‘d fought back against the way the world worked, tried to snatch a queer kid from the jaws of its cruel indifference…”
At its heart, outside of the blood and guts, 👆🏻 is what the book is about. I liked this much more than Manhunt, and I came to really love and root for this rag-tag group of queer kids forced into a conversion camp by their parents. I love how they immediately accepted each other for who they are.
I‘ve put in a bunch of holds for all formats of #TOBlonglist books and these are the ones my library had on the shelves. (They also had the Rooney, but I‘m not interested in it.) I‘ve read 28 so far, so I‘m in good shape! (I may be going a little overboard with all this. 😬)
Caught this pic of my husband reading while in line at the Telluride Horror Show this weekend. When we weren‘t watching fantastic horror shorts or features, we were reading horror novels! I am finally reading Cabin at the End of the World.
pickWhat to say, what to say. I am here all day for conversion camp horror, they are already horrific so makes sense to use them as settings for otherworldly horrors as well. I did struggle tracking characters in this one, sometimes having to go back and check whose perspective I was reading. Overall a worthwhile read and really some disgusting stuff.
pickI‘m writing this with tears drying on my cheeks.
Brilliant and devastating. I haven‘t read Manhunt so I didn‘t really know what I was getting myself into. The prologue could stand as its own short story, but is a hell of a bit of foreshadowing. We know exactly what the kids in the novel are going to face but the slow, dread-building pacing as they creep closer to that revelation is addictive.
I DNFd Manhunt a year or so ago, so when I put this on hold I actually almost cancelled the hold. But usually I try to give a new to me author a couple of tries before I decide we aren‘t soulmates and this one is SO GOOD
I realize that a big touch point for this book is It, but I didn't realize it was such a big touch point as to have a group sex scene. It's an interesting choice, since the sexuality of these children is (for the most part) already a focus point in their lives, what gets them sent to this conversion camp.
pickThis was SK‘s It meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The prologue could have been its own brutal short story. A bunch of teens are sent to a conversion camp in the 90s. A camp hiding a very cosmic horror. Years later the survivors will have to go back to finish what they started. This was great. Gretchen doesn‘t care about your feelings or delicate sensibilities cause she just tells it like it is. My only issue here is is that I wish she 👇🏼
pickFollowing up Manhunt and her gory queer horror genre, author Gretchen Felker-Martin does her version of conversion camp terror. A group of LGBTQ+ teens must survive the true horrors of their gay conversion camp peoson while uncovering the macabre truth that establishment is hiding.
Cuckoo | 
