This blew me away, in the best ways. I wasn't sure what I'd think and whether any potential satirical element would undercut my enjoyment of the horror, but this is a PHENOMENAL book, with great characters, over-the-top narration balanced with solid plotting, and a pretty great, cathartic ending. Loved it, and I'll be buying a copy as soon as it's released.

I really wanted to really like this. I have been so curious what a full length Chuck Tingle novel would be like, and I do have to say I’m disappointed.

I liked the idea of this story a lot, but the execution wasn’t quite there for me. It felt like some things were left unfinished, or that some things happened too easily. I don’t know if it would benefit from tighter editing or what could have been done to pull the story together a bit more, but there was really something lacking overall in the story.

It’s basically a horror story about a conversion camp being run by a church. It’s told from the POV of Rose, who is a member of the church and community. As the book progresses you learn that things aren’t quite as Rose thought. Overall I liked the characters. One thing I thought was odd was that Rose is autistic, though it’s revealed in a very showy way. I think she’s written in a way that could be read as autistic, but then it’s revealed/confirmed when she breaks into her therapist’s office and is going through her file and she’s like “he doesn’t even have my autism noted”. It just felt off to me? I don’t know.

Anyway, I like what Tingle was trying to do here, it just didn’t work for me.

3 stars

I’m not entirely sure that I liked the writing style. There was a lot there that didn’t really need to be added. However, the story and premise were really good. Unique in my personal reading experiences. I love lost horror with the religious aspects.
Overall this was good, and I enjoyed my time with it.

CAMP DAMASCUS by Chuck Tingle

Release Date: July 18th, 2023
General Genre: Horror
Subgenre/Themes: Coming-of-Age, Cults, Human Monsters, Psychological, Small Town Horror, Religious Stuff,
Writing Style: Character-Driven, Brisk Pace,

What You Need to Know: It will be interesting to see how readers with different religious backgrounds engage with this book. I was raised agnostic by parents who leaned, atheist. In marriage, I started attending an evangelical church with my husband and eventually identified as a Christian even though I still held to my liberal views on everything and felt like an outcast in some Christian circles for my "radical beliefs". In 2020 while churches were closed, I realized I never wanted to go back. I started "deconstructing" my faith and now I no longer identify as a Christian but I'm still on a faith-based journey to personalize where I stand. This book is extremely important as an in-depth, fictionalized (but realistic) intimate look at the dangers of heterosexual-white-American-evangelical-monotheistic purity culture and their dogmatic beliefs.

My Reading Experience: Triggered. Very, very triggered. In a good way though. It was validating and soul-edifying to read this book knowing that the author behind it all, Dr. Chuck Tingle, the life-giving energy behind 'LOVE IS REAL', knew about the secret bullshit going on behind evangelical closed doors and was exposing it.
I got too close to the kind of evangelical religiosity depicted in this fictional book about a radically successful gay conversion camp. To the average reader untouched by evangelicalism (although, nobody is really untouched since their political activism affects us all) seems too exaggerated to be true except the horror of this book is that it's not. It's not that far removed from the truth and that's what makes this book so important. But it might be hard for some to read.
I was already standing in line for a book like this, the story of a young woman who lives with her parents in a small town. They attend a church that feels like a charismatic, mega-church where the pastor is a bit of a cult of personality and his followers are like his cheerleaders. It made me think of Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll. These very charming and emotionally manipulative religious leaders able to whip their followers into a frenzy. Has anyone seen the documentary Jesus Camp?
That film is a companion piece to this book.
So the MC of Camp Damascus, this young woman, is happily committed to the same ultra-religious lifestyle as her parents. Very purity culture driven, moralistic, fueled by behavior modification and keeping those sins and any sinful thoughts in check. Even caffeine is frowned upon because it's an unnatural stimulant and capable of altering one's state of being.
Tingle does an excellent job of setting up the dominoes so that once a conflict is introduced and that first domino is tapped, the rest of them start a chain reaction until we're speeding toward the climax/resolution.
I don't want to get too far into spoiler territory, but there are some exciting reader-discovery moments where the force behind the success of the gay conversion camp is revealed and I applaud Tingle for flipping the script on a classic (and favorite!) horror trope. Very clever. I loved it.
I think the temptation here for some horror readers will be to compare this book to the viral success of his "Tinglers", his erotic fiction but I believe this book is Tingle's attempt to build a bridge into the mainstream horror market so the message will reach a broader audience. It's my hope that Camp Damascus will land in the right readers' hands.

Final Recommendation: Camp Damascus does read on the YA spectrum of horror but it's written to appeal to all ages. I enjoyed it. I think it's important and I hope that it will inspire more books like it to rise up and draw attention to the horrors of heterosexual-white-American-evangelical-monotheistic purity culture and their dogmatic beliefs. Especially concerning the LBGTQIA+ community.

Comps: Jesus Camp (documentary), Pray Away (documentary), They/Them (Blumhouse horror movie w/Kevin Bacon), Surrender Your Sons by Adam Sass

This was good! The beginning few chapters are truly terrifying and the idea is fantastic. There were two major weaknesses imo; one that the actual otherworldly mechanics of the camp are way less scary than the engagement with evangelical extremism, and two that the fallout of Rose's choice is extremely heavy handed. There's not as much subtlety or complexity in the negotiation of religious trauma as there could have been.

Rose Darling has spent her life trying to follow the tenets of her religious community, Kingdom of the Pine in the small town of Neverton, Montana. Now 20 years old, Rose is getting ready to graduate from high school (adherents to the church's teachings take a year off after 5th grade and again after 10th to devote themselves to study of their prophet's teachings). Her parents keep reminding her of the importance of fighting temptation and obeying the guidelines of the church, even if she doesn't always agree or understand why. One of her classmates, Isaiah, is interested in her and while her parents try to persuade her that it's time to marry and settle down, Rose is more concerned that she's attracted to another friend, Martina. Just as she's becoming aware of these strange new feelings, odd things start to happen to her. During dinner with her parents, a sudden tickle in her throat turns into an expulsion of flies from her mouth (which doesn't seem to alarm her parents as much as it should). She also glimpses an odd apparition that no one else seems to notice. It is a woman with pale features, stringy dark hair, and a nametag that reads Pachid. Rose also begins to have flashbacks involving a young woman she can't remember ever meeting. When she also starts to have vague memories from the church-run Camp Damascus, set outside of town and which boasts a 100% success rate in turning gay young people straight, Rose decides to ignore her parents and therapist and do some digging on her own to get to the truth.

The story was quite interesting and timely as to the harm that can be done by people who justify any cruel or inhumane treatment as necessary to "fix" someone. The explanation of the procedures the religious group uses to re-program the people who fall into their clutches is truly horrifying. I enjoyed discovering the truth with Rose and seeing what terrible ordeals the characters had to go through just to be themselves.

I liked this foray into horror from Chuck Tingle. I thought that the protagonist and the friends she (re-)collects throughout the story were sweet. The religion/demon theme was pretty unique, and I thought that there were some genuinely creepy moments of lurking monstrosities. The ending feels like a bit of a revenge fantasy (not that I super mind?) and perhaps the mechanics of the monsters were a bit too over-explained so as to be less scary. However, this was a solid read and one that took on some tough topics (conversion therapy, religious trauma, being cast out from your family) very gamely.

If I read the first fifth of a story and don’t care about where it’s going, it’s a DNF. I seem to break that rule a lot, though, and I broke it here; I pushed to 33% before I called it quits. So I have read the first third, rather than the first fifth, and I was not impressed. The first-person narration is very blunt and dry, with a lot more telling than showing; I was disgusted rather than actually showing or conveying that disgust. And while there might be twists later in the novel, I didn’t find the whole vomiting-flies, seeing-demons thing especially interesting or original, even with the mind/memory-fuckery going on.

I feel like a surprising number of Horror writers forget, or don’t realise, that no matter what horrible visuals they come up with, very little of it is frightening without immersive sensory detail. It’s not enough to have a character vomiting flies; what does that feel like? Describe the sensations in the character’s throat, on their tongue, the taste! Compare the glistening of the larvae to the wet spaghetti they’ve been vomited into! Make me feel it; make my stomach heave! You can’t just…lean on the fact that most readers find the idea of bugs in our mouths icky, you know? That kind of shorthand works when we’re talking about a visual medium – a painting, a comic, a film – maybe because we’re wired to react more viscerally to things we see. But a static image you sketch in my head with dry, undescriptive prose is not going to have the same reaction unless you happen across one of my particular triggers, which is not something you can depend on managing with every – or even most – readers.

It doesn’t help that Rose isn’t a very interesting character – I like that she’s curious, but she’s also very placid, and when that placidity starts to change…it happens very quickly, and without any obvious trigger. I didn’t understand or believe in her pretty abrupt transformation into someone who doubted her parents, her therapist, her God. What’s fuelling this change? What’s pushing her away from her Church? Did I miss something? Even if I did, it’s not great that something that major is small enough to be missed!

My main issue, though, is definitely the fact that Tingle tells us what Rose is feeling – and by implication, what we should be feeling – instead of, you know, making us feel it. That never works for me. And the lack of description – particularly sensory description – means absolutely none of the horror elements actually strike me as frightening in any way.

Sorry. Pretty major fail.

The eponymous camp is as much of a nightmare as this book is a joy. It's a story of hope, as a young woman recovers from damage suffered at the hands of an extremist cult, both over the course of her lifetime and as a result of her enforced stay at the cult's outwardly "successful" conversion therapy camp.

Supernatural horror elements are handled head-on, but cleverly, and the execution of this high-concept story is straightforward and effective. As with Tingle's previous horror novella Straight, this title's content is appropriate for YA horror readers and up.

This is an excellent, wholesome, and big-hearted read about young queer people facing down their personal demons. It is absolutely terrifying, but the social horror implications are mostly dyed into the fabric of the book, highlighting the plight of one girl and her found family against very real demons.

This is much easier to find and buy now that Tingle's being published by TOR Nightfire (and that is a brilliant move for both of them). My difficulty with this title is that I'm going to give it to the people who need it, and they'll want more just like it, and Tingle hasn't published them yet.

First, the heads up for folks coming in who are familiar with Chuck's other work: This is NOT a book I'd put in the same category as any of them. If you want more of those books, look elsewhere (Chuck produces plenty of them).

What this is is a very solid short horror book, arguably YA in tone, albeit with a lot more body horror than most YA books (we're talking people throwing up live flies in chapter 1). And, as anyone who's read the description knows, it revolves around gay conversion camps, the vile torture colonies set up by the sort of folks intent on telling you that JK Rowling is subject to a "witch hunt" (spoiler alert: She's not, and she should go away). So beware of both of those things if you can't handle them.

That said, man is this a really good story. It's unabashedly queer and also features an autistic main character (neither of which is a shock coming from Tingle), and is also unabashedly horror. We've got a lead who is having visions of things that can't be real, suspects that she's forgotten things about herself, and whose parents may be hiding something from her. Throw in a hyper-religious Christian community (with touches of Prosperity Gospel to make things even worse), and you've got a setting that's dripping in horror from the beginning, and that's before we start encountering literal demons.

I'm probably not the only person who kind of dismissed Tingle as a one-trick pony for his various "Pounded in the Butt" books, but this shows he's got the potential to be a genuinely interesting horror author. While the ultimate denouement itself is a bit predictable, the sheer violence surrounding it is impressive. Highly recommended.

Camp Damascus: In Camp Damascus, Tingle joins the rich tradition of using the horror genre to explore real life horrors. Some of these horrors are large and systemic, like conversion therapy/conversion camps and the theocratical and religious power in the United States that allow their existence. Some of these horrors are more personal, like realizing how good intentions can be manipulated into supporting oppressive systems and recognizing and recovering from trauma. Both are used effectively throughout the novel.

The book’s driving force is Rose, the book’s narrator. She is an autistic, lesbian survivor, and each of these identities are crucial in fully understanding her actions and reactions. These identities are also interwoven throughout the novel organically and are sources of strength, not weakness, which I appreciated. I was compelled to keep reading and uncovering more alongside Rose.

One mild critique is that the ending felt a little rushed compared to the pace of the rest of the novel. However, I did still enjoy the book overall and would recommend it.

Really good and valuable, considering themes it touched upon. I love queer horror and this worked very well for me. I feel like the writing style could have been improved in a few places, but other than that, highly recommendable.

This book will be beloved by any of Chuck Tingle's fans. It is a great venture into the horror genre, while also speaking true about some of the real life horror that queer teens and young adults face growing up in religious communities -- or even just families and communities who are not accepting of queer folx. I did struggle a bit with the pacing and style at times, but I think that's a personal preference rather than anything with the book itself. Others will find it perfectly suited to them.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle is a terrifying and haunting exploration of the demons that the queer community faces in America. Set in the small town of Neverton, Montana, the story takes readers to Camp Damascus, a gay conversion camp where a life free from sin supposedly awaits. But what goes on behind closed doors is far from holy. Tingle's searing debut sheds light on the price of keeping secrets and the courage it takes to burn it all down. Camp Damascus is a poignant and timely read that will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page.

Thank you, Tor Publishing Group, Tor Nightfire, for allowing me to read Camp Damascus early!

Blessed be the Earth for Chuck Tingle's existence. This book is a masterpiece.

This was so clearly written by someone with the experience of growing up queer in a religious family/town/area it SHINES off the page. the all consuming desire to behave correctly, the pain or realizing it will never be enough, the freedom of accepting that, and the need to find a community that loves you.

my one complaint is that it does feel like rose's awakening was slightly rushed

Was this a good book? Eh. The writing was middling, the lost love romance bland, the characters except for...oh god...what was the narrator's name again?...forgettable. The chapters took the reader through the premise of the story competently, but, look. I've read gay conversion camp parodies. I've seen <em>But I'm a Cheerleader</em>. And this was BLEEEEHHHHH.

Did I read til the end, though? You bet!

Chuck should stick with writing Tinglers, because they are DUMB and AWESOME. This will probably get read by those who follow the Tingle name. Beyond that, this is what we in the library world would call a "supplementary purchase for large horror collections."