The Troop by Nick Cutter

2.5 stars

I had heard a lot about this book going into it, and maybe that was the first failure. Most everything I saw said that this was the scariest book someone had ever read and don’t read it if you have a weak stomach, and it’ll blow you away from how scary it is. I had myself so hyped up about this that it just had no chance of living up to those expectations.

There is a lot of animal cruelty in this. Had I known that, I likely wouldn’t have grabbed a copy of The Troop because that’s one thing that I really don’t like in horror books. The author tells each instance in such excruciating detail rather unnecessarily, and it was really off-putting to me. I don’t want to read about animals being treated so badly.

The Troop was a slog. I feel like it dragged way longer than it needed to. While I did read this in one day, it was more out of sheer stubbornness to try and find whatever it was that everyone gushed over. I took several breaks away from the book because it was so uninteresting to me. All the major characters slotted rather handily into the box the author put them in, and they never really deviated from that. There weren’t any twists or anything that truly shocked me as something I didn’t already anticipate.

All in all, between the toilet humour, clunky interviews and articles (I think someone may have watched too many crime dramas on TV), and the predictable “Lord of the Flies”-esque survival plot, this book just didn’t do it for me. I can see how it may appeal to certain crowds, but it didn’t appeal to me.