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Cuckoo: A Review

Gretchen Felker-Martin is back! It’s been two years since Manhunt dropped, and the world is still reeling from her spectacularly violent, grimy apocalypse novel. Now she’s written an arguably darker tale of queer fear in Cuckoo.

Like its predecessor, Cuckoo is undeniably a queer horror story. The novel introduces us to a group of teens, each of whom has been violently removed from their home and forcefully transported across the country. Their only crime? Being a queer teen in the 90s, for which their parents shipped them off to be changed. When they arrive at Camp Resolution, a desert-based conversion camp, they have nothing but each other, and no idea what they’re about to face. They don’t even know what state they’re in. Far from home and cut off from the outside world, they’ll have to band together to make it out unchanged.

Camp Resolution is, in a word, weird. The educational curriculum is pseudoscience, the physical activities consist of backbreaking labor or myriad household chores (depending on assigned sex), and the counselors are not just prone to violence but actively encourage it. The campers who have been there longer are brutal to the newcomers, and even Pastor Eddie, the leader of the camp, won’t hesitate to beat any of the teens who don’t bow to his whims.

Something darker still lurks in the shadows of Camp Resolution, though. The campers who have graduated from the program are… different. Not themselves anymore (and while some would argue that yes, that’s the point of a conversion camp, Resolution’s strategy relies a lot less on prayer and the Bible). Then, the dreams begin. The same dream. Each camper is digging a hole, and they find their own body buried deep in the earth. Something is reaching out to them, speaking to them… preparing them. Our ragged misfits know that they have to escape the camp, before they too are irrevocably changed.

Gretchen Felker-Martin absolutely nailed the building dread in Cuckoo. This book is just as filthy as Manhunt, and I mean that in the best way of describing her aesthetics and worldbuilding. I was thrilled to find out that her sophomore effort was an incredibly solid piece of horror. Cuckoo is out in the world today. Go get it. Read it. Get scared. Repeat.

My utmost thanks to Tor and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review.

Camp Damascus: A Review

By now, I think that just about anyone who spends time in literary circles on the internet has heard of the legendary Chuck Tingle. While the pseudonymous author is probably best known for his short erotica works (aka “Tinglers”) like Pounded in the Butt by My Own Butt, Tingle has been making forays into longer stories in other genres. The one that caught my attention most was Camp Damascus, a horror novel about a gay conversion camp in Montana. Needless to say I leapt at the opportunity to read it as soon as I could.

Camp Damascus is the story of Rose Darling, a twenty year-old autistic woman living in Neverton, Montana. Rose and her family are members of The Kingdom of the Pine, a close-knit ultra-conservative Christian community that runs the titular camp. Unlike any other such camp, Camp Damascus boasts an unheard-of 100% success rate for kids who are sent there by parents who don’t want them to be gay. Rose’s life (and life at the Darling house in general) seems perfect. She’s about to finish high school (all Kingdom kids spend two years on church activities in between years of school, and so by senior year are older than any of their non-Kingdom or secular classmates). She loves volunteering for the church, and she loves her parents. She also loves research, and memorizing scientific facts alongside bible verses.

When Rose is out with her friends at the local swimming hole trying to build up the confidence to dive off the little cliff, she takes the hand of her classmate, Martina, and they leap together. It’s an exhilarating experience, and the first time that Rose has dared to do something so brave. However, when she returns to the top of the cliff to test her newfound courage and jump again, she sees something horrifying. An old, drowned-looking woman with unnaturally long fingers and white eyes appears to be staring at her, and no one else can see her. Later that night, in the middle of dinner with her parents, Rose coughs out a large mass that turns out to be a swarm of insects. Something is very, very wrong.

Soon, Rose’s investigative mind begins racing, trying to understand what she has seen and felt. Memories begin to surface, and she finds herself questioning everything that she has ever known about herself, her parents, The Kingdom of the Pine, and Camp Damascus. In Neverton, trying to uncover the truth is going to be impossible to do alone, but it’s the right thing to do, even if it means casting aside everything that she knew that made her Rose Darling.

Camp Damascus is a pitch-perfect horror novel. It’s a quick read, and it’s delightfully discomforting to a former member of a Christian community. This book is going to be absolutely life-changing for so many people. Tingle’s writing is tight, packing a solid story into under 300 pages. There are loads of little nods to his particular turns of phrase throughout as well. If you’ve ever given his Twitter feed a read, you’ll find yourself chuckling (ha) at some familiar wording. My utmost thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Camp Damascus is out this Tuesday, July 18th. Go get yourself a copy and help to prove that love is real.