**3.5-stars rounded up**

Cuckoo is an Extreme Horror novel following a diverse cast of Queer characters trying to survive a Conversion Camp and its aftermath. Kicking off in 1995, this book gets in your face and stays there. Warning: there are no limits!

It's guaranteed to make you uncomfortable, cringey, angry, and hurt for 99% of the time that you are reading it. If you're not, you may want to check your pulse. This is the kind of book that makes me wish I had a BookTube channel, because I could talk about this book for hours. It made me think a lot and really analyze everything that's going on here.

Sadly, my patience for typing isn't as robust as my patience for talking, so I promise, this won't be too long. Most likely, you are wondering what this is all about. The cover doesn't reveal too much and the title could mean anything. Basically, this story starts in 1995, it introduces us to a group of characters, all Queer, who are forcibly sent to a Conversion Camp by their families.

The very beginning of the novel is interesting, because as you're meeting the various characters it was delivered sort of via vignette style, which I'm not necessarily accustomed to. In a way, it made it feel like I was getting short stories for each of the major players. Once they are all moved to the conversion camp, we then follow the various atrocities that occur there. Unsurprisingly, as the characters are being submitted to daily abuses, they begin to bond and form connections to one another. Ultimately, a plan to break out is formed.

In Part II, we fast forward to where these teens are now adults, and they're brought together once again to try to fight the old evil they were exposed to at the camp. What they've come to call, the cuckoo. They want to save the next generation of teens suffering like they did. The story is much more complex than this basic synopsis lets on, but it is best to go in knowing as little as possible.

However, with this being said, I want to stress that this is an <b>Extreme Horror</b> novel. I feel this is a very important distinction for me to make, because I'm not sure the synopsis, or the way it's currently being marketed, really makes that clear enough. My concern for this book is that people are going to pick it up thinking it is a Queer Horror novel, which, yes, it is, but there is a very big difference between a mainstream Horror book and an Extreme Horror book. I feel like people who have never read Extreme Horror before, or maybe aren't aware that is even a subgenre, will pick this up and be traumatized for life.

I read this subgenre regularly, so nothing here surprised me, especially having read Felker-Martin before, I knew what I was getting myself into. I signed up knowingly, willingly and I really enjoyed the journey of this story. I just want to throw out a friendly warning to anyone else who may not be so prepared. This is extreme, it's graphic, both in a violent and sexual nature, and holds absolutely nothing back.

I wouldn't say this is quite as Splatterpunk as Manhunt, and I actually enjoyed the trajectory of this story more than Manhunt, but this is still full of Felker-Martin's signature style of extreme writing. One small issue I had though was the pace. I felt like in the beginning, it read fairly slowly, and then by the end, it was progressing too quickly. The lead-up to the final events, I actually wish was more drawn out. While I appreciate the intensity built throughout, I actually would have preferred a more even pace.

Also, I really loved Part II, which followed the characters as adults, but it didn't start until around 70%. I would have loved a more 50/50 split, between following them as teens, and then following them as adults. Overall, I thought this was great. It was engaging and thought-provoking. I feel like as a piece of Extreme Horror Fiction, it was creative and very well-written.

I enjoyed this more than Manhunt, which was quite a memorable reading experience, and feel like Felker-Martin's style is fine-tuning into something that is distinct in the subgenre. She is wildly-imaginative and not afraid to explore very difficult topics. She pulls no punches.

Thank you to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I will definitely be picking up whatever this author writes next!

The basic premise of Cuckoo is this: a bunch of queer young folks are sent to this horrific camp by their asshole families because of their aforementioned queerness. Their families have all found out about their gender identities and/or sexualities, and just... shipped 'em out to this conversion camp on steroids. We see the perspectives of quite a few of the victims (because they are not, under any circumstances, "campers"), and at times it was a wee bit hard to keep track of all of the POVs (we're talking at least a dozen kids here, so it was a big cast of characters), but I really did appreciate their stories, so I understood the choice.

And look, I did not have a clue as to what was going on with the "Cuckoo" aspect- is it a parasite? Just symbolic for evil? Who knows. But the story itself was good, and I did understand most of the symbolism and commentary. So that is obviously what is important here. Since it is a book by Gretchen Felker-Martin, you can expect some very gnarly stuff. Lots of body horror, sexual depravity, etc. That is just how she rolls, so if you aren't down, this is likely not the book for you. But I think that if you can handle that sort of thing, the story is certainly worth it. The story eventually takes a turn that I did not expect, and I really enjoyed it, though I don't want to talk about it because spoilers.

Bottom Line: Always, always here for calling out (loudly and very creatively, in this case) the vile atrocities some parents force on their kids.

♡𝙰𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚘𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔 &| 𝚎𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠♡
4 🌟
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Just know this book is U N H I N G E D! U N H I N G E D! Extremely heavy book, but it's so worth the read. But read at your own risk. Check TW!
𝙽𝚘𝚠 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎!
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Thank you, Netgalley, MacmillanAudio for the (ALC)-audiobook, and Tor Publishing Group for the (eArc)-eBook for my honest review.

This is an interesting mashup of Camp Damascus and IT. The first three quarters of the book are straightforward if a bit confusing at times and compulsively readable. The problem shows up in the final quarter of the novel. The writing seems to be from an entirely different person and the ideas become muddled and confused. While the plot finishes strong and is satisfactory, the vehicle struggles to get us there.

Fantastic queer horror, juggles a wide range of characters really well, and taps into the horror of real life in a visceral, raw way. Great book!

After reading and reviewing Gretchen Felker-Martin’s brilliant debut novel Manhunt back in 2022, I eagerly awaited her next book. And let me tell you: Cuckoo has exceeded my expectations. Once again, Gretchen’s economical prose and carefully crafted scenes accentuate her memorable characters and worldbuilding.

In Cuckoo, five queer teens are sent to a conversion camp in Utah during the late 1990s. The teens endure labor around the farm and kitchen, noticing the strange behavior of the camp counselors and suspicious sights involving unusual pellets (that may not be from an owl) and creatures lurking about. Although the camp’s mission is to convert the children, a plot to literally strip these kids and make them “acceptable” to society dwells in the bowels of this camp. To avoid this horrifying fate, the five teens plan their escape, but their experiences at the camp will haunt them through their later years.

The author wastes no time in getting to the meat of the plot. The novel contains enough suspense and drama to compel the reader until the final page. Each page harbors an impressive balance of backstory and suspense. Cuckoo follows the perspectives of several characters and includes significant time jumps. However, Gretchen expertly irons out these transitions. While I don’t expect less from her, the author has managed to break all expectations, serving a powerful narrative with vivid imagery and sharp characterization.

Cuckoo also doesn’t refrain from its violent and hideous moments. The characters – portrayed as within and beyond their sexuality, gender, racial, and cultural identity – are complicated, revolting, and commiserate, reminding us of our humanity. The characters experience grief, not just from losing a loved one, but also from losing themselves. Doubts about one’s gender, the fear of having to live a “normal” life for safety, unstable relationships, and sexual violence add to the well-nuanced storytelling of this novel.

If you’ve read other books by Gretchen Felker-Martin, you will enjoy this one. Cuckoo has the same dark, visceral, edgy voice as Manhunt. I recommend it to YA plus readers, a great horror novel that reminds me of the classic novel Holes but for adults. It takes a moment to know well who is who, but we get insight into each one's struggles and personality as we go.

When Felix, Gabriel, Joanna, John, Malcolm, Nadine, and Shelby find themselves in the middle of the desert at Camp Resolution, they expect the usual conversion camp treatments—abuse, sexual assault, and sadism in the guise of help. Nothing they can’t handle; after all, it’s the same in their parents’ homes. However, they soon sense a wrongness beyond the familiar. There’s a sickly sweet quality to the malice, an unearthly gleam behind the eyes, a whispered ripple beneath the skin. There are shared dreams of grinning faces and murmurs of “come to me.” In an explosion of violence, the teens come face to face with the monster underneath the camp and escape with torn out pieces and shattered minds.

Unable to purge the vestigial malevolence, they remain shadows sixteen years later. By turns repelled by and attracted to one another’s orbits, they drift aimlessly—until Felix calls. All these years, he’s been hunting, scouring every isolated conversion camp to find the body-snatching predator. Though still those same traumatized teenagers inside, they must run towards the danger instead of away from it to secure the possibility of a future for themselves and the world.

Cuckoo is a mix of The Body Snatchers, its spiritual sequel The Thing, and It, and is filled with the same dread, horror, and fragile beaten-down hope. The narrative is infused with unsettling tension and simmering emotional and physical aggression that is sometimes more disturbing than the grisly brutality. I think a staple of Felker-Martin’s books is screaming out against society’s cultivated invisibility, dehumanization, and invalidation of the marginalized. Her very strong narrative voice and evocative writing style conveys every drop of emotion, vulnerability, and heartache. To that end, there are many potentially upsetting elements here, such as conversion camps, transphobia, queerphobia, child abuse, allusions to childhood sexual abuse, and gore.

Like the aforementioned stories, the horrifying elements of the creature’s alienness reflect the everyday horrors perpetrated against people who society alienates. For John, Malcolm, Nadine, Shelby, Felix, and Jo, being kidnapped and abandoned to the cruel camp feels inevitable. Already walking bundles of trauma from being emotionally embattled in various ways by their parents, their queerness provided tacit permission to throw them away. As one character says, “. . . it’s like suicide to change who you are,” and that’s what everyone wants—for them to die and emerge as something else. The creature eagerly grants the parents’ wish, and the perfect children it sends back swallows up families one by one.

The teens are volatile fountains of indoctrinated contempt that is weaponized against others, themselves, or both, but it’s also a form of protection. Their different emotional challenges foster responses to imprisonment that run the gamut between Felix’s keep your head down and just survive mentality, to Nadine’s everybody’s gonna have to survive me mindset. Despite their differences, all any of them wants is a home. They crave love, stability, and the seeming impossibility of just being teenagers. They desire to be a part of something greater than themselves, making them more vulnerable and open to the rapacious being in the desert that offers a corrupted and nightmarish version of that. Queer children are its perfect meat source—lambs to the slaughter, pre-tenderized by hopelessness—that no one will miss and gratefully offered up by their parents.

As in It, the survivors club must band together again as adults to slay the beast, not just neutralize it. For sixteen years, they lived as ghosts on the periphery, full of loneliness, restlessness, and festering terror. Though they relied on each other to escape and created a fractured found family, their experience made staying together untenable, despite their desperation to do so. Their youthful camaraderie was tenuous and sharp edged; their fraught survival caused those sharp edges to grow fangs that know where to strike. While they come back together to face the creature, their shared scars don’t bond them into a singular whole. They are a unit of cobbled together amorphous and terrible pieces that may not cohere enough to win.

Like its inspirations, Cuckoo does not shy away from violence and body horror. The same skill that expresses the range of emotions, deaths by a thousand cuts, and losses, creates vivid and stomach-churning images. I will say that the author’s way with words is a double-edge sword; there are emotional landscapes and scenes of heightened awareness that could have been created more economically. At times, her metaphor and adjectival overindulgence drags the pace in Part I, and her inability to kill her darlings in Part II can be tedious and put Stephen King to shame.

Cuckoo is another successful exploration of queer rejection, socially sanctioned violence, resistance, and wounded resiliency by Felker-Martin, and if you’re in the mood for something visceral, this may be just your speed.

Felix, Gabriel, Joanna, John, Malcolm, Nadine, and Shelby find themselves in the middle of the desert at Camp Resolution, They expect the usual conversion camp treatments. They are queer teenagers and find that the camp is church-run. They find themselves in the middle of a desert. They discover that there is something else in the desert but what is it? That something wants their bodies and identities. There are some in the camp who do not seem to be the same when they have graduated and now going home. What has happened? Will the seven teenagers survive the conversion camp? They decide that they must escape the camp but are not sure how they will do it. They separate on their own ways to live and try to forget what they saw. Felix gets them together to kill what wanted their bodies. Will they succeed?

The author has written a horror story. This may not be an easy book to read as it includes a conversion camp, transphobia, queer phobia, child abuse, allusions to childhood sexual abuse, and gore. At times, it was hard for me to think of what I have heard about conversion camps. I do think that this novel is good as it gives you a chance to see how teenagers deal with these “problems.” It’s a great way to discuss and discover what should be done that is still not being done.

While I appreciate Tor for sending me this ARC, it was not for me. I found my mind wandering and I just couldn’t get invested in the story. The pacing was weird, with a weird time jump 100 pages from the end of the book. There were way too many POV’s, 2 would have been plenty. I didn’t care for any of the characters, so there was no emotional impact when they died. Just an underwhelming book that I had such high hopes for.

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.

This review originally appeared here: https://swordsoftheancients.com/2024/06/11/cuckoo-a-review/

Really liked this story about a conversion camp gone even wronger! Felker-Martin does not pull punches with her gruesome and unapologetically queer stories.

There is a great story at the core of Cuckoo, but unfortunately it's bogged down by too many characters' POVs, nearly inscrutable descriptions, and oddly-timed sex scenes.

Ooooh this book was absolutely fabulous! I know people are referring to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I can definitely see that. Conversion camp set in Utah for queer teens set in the 90s, this book shows the physical and psychological horrors of the camp and the supernatural horror of the area as well. The character development, from the use of multiple POVs is extraordinary. Alos, I love that all of the reader's senses are incorporated into this novel in order to make it a more realistic, horrifying read. I am now a fan of Felker-Martin and will be checking out their other works!!!

Cuckoo had the perfect amount of paranoia of who might human and who is not. I took one star because the first half of the book was confusing as we were introduced to too many characters for me to keep track of. They all end up being important in one way or another the later half of the book but keeping track of the names when they were first introduced was challenging. At the end I found myself emotional and rooting for the main characters, they're all flawed but that's what makes them all so likeable.

A rehabilitation facility from the 1990s harboring an ominous, undisclosed agenda? I am intrigued. Is a cohort of LGBTQ+ adolescents bravely confronting a nefarious malevolence? Naturally, I am fully invested. The evocative sensory details crafted by Felker-Martin are particularly striking. The central antagonist is unsettling, with the sense of smell playing a significant role in conveying the unearthly abnormality of the Cuckoo, in addition to its monstrous form. Gretchen does an amazing job scaring us and opening our eyes to the disgusting nature of these camps to steal children’s identities and force them to be the way “God intended”. This book made me feel for these poor teens and those who struggle with this daily.

Cuckoo evokes a unique blend of tenderness and playfulness, yet also delves into the depths of darkness and twistedness. It can be likened to a fusion of an 80's summer camp horror film and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. While not quite reaching the level of exceptional, it is certainly a noteworthy read. This novel may not be suitable for the faint of heart, but it is essential for those who appreciate unsettling and gory horror. In other words, it is a brilliant work.

Cuckoo is one of those books that makes me wish I had: a) Worked out how to actually build my website that I paid for so I could write a long essay about this book and all its themes and other stuff; or, b) Wish I still wrote really long book reviews that I then had to slice and dice in order to fit them into my social media spaces. In my opinion it’s really that good, that captivating, and that intelligent.

It’s giving me Stephen King’s IT, but make the protagonists all queer in one way or another. It’s giving me “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, but make it body horror to the extreme. It’s giving me cosmic horror, but putting it in the form of brood parasitism (which is a real behavior of cuckoo birds, leading to the metaphor “cuckoo’s egg”).

Why do I love this book other than it’s a queer conversion camp cosmic horror? It comes down to Felker-Martin’s writing, really. Her writing seems to come at you from all sides, all at once, with no quarter given. It’s a full-on assault to your brain in the best way: brutal, gory, inelegant, raw, terrifying, visceral, sensual, erotic, emotional, romantic, heartbreaking, nauseating, and more. When I was reading this book it sometimes felt like I was on an emotional and reactional ride, being carried away with the words on the page almost without consent (but it’s not like I’d have fought the tide anyway).

This was just a terrific read I know I’m going to be recommending forever.

(Be sure to check your TW/CWs thoroughly before reading if you think you’ll need to.)

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Cosmic Horror/Horror/LGBTQ Horror/OwnVoices

Have you ever read something absolutely disgusting and terrible, but in all the best ways? That was basically my experience with Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin. Ultimately what this book is is queer horror in its truest form—that our bodies and identities may be taken from us should we not live up to others’ expectations. And that we are somehow immune or exempt from humanity’s most primal bond, because of who we are and who we love. This isn’t an easy book to read. It is terrifying in its ability to normalize filicide, and that is the point isn’t it?
Felker-Martin includes a quote in this book that pretty much encapsulates the entire premise:
“This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.”
-Jim Sinclair
I can tell you now, I loved Cuckoo. I loved it for its ugly subject matter, and its grotesque body horror. I loved it for keeping me awake at night, and the way it pulled from classic horror media like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives (the 1975 version as it’s way scarier), updating those primal fears of replacement with newfound evolutions like imposter syndrome and conversion therapy—the dire hope for you to change and become someone or something entirely different. Not for you, but for those that say they love you. Being honest, reading this book was a bad time, but it was one I found incredibly satisfying. Like throwing up during a hangover, or pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurts as bad as it did the day before. Would I recommend Cuckoo? Absolutely. It should be on every queer horror fan’s tbr.

I found that the synopsis was very intriguing and it made me want to read this book. From the very first chapter I knew that I wouldn't like it. The writing style is just not for me. I think I would have enjoyed the story more if it was written a little differently.

This author is problematic and I'm choosing to abstain from reading and reviewing any of their books. I am still thankful to the publisher and Netgalley for granting me access to this book.