The Troop
Ratings224
Average rating3.6
Lost interest about halfway through as the themes became repetitive and I stopped caring about the characters.
Somehow, this title keeps jumping onto the “read”-shelf, whenever I try to put in onto the “Did not finish”-shelf.
Admittedly, I'm very close to finishing it, but I haven't been reading in it for a loooooooong time, so would probably have to go back a bit to remember some of the story and that ain't gonna happen.
It started out promisingly enough with weird going-ons interspersed with interviews and articles about what happened before the unfortunate group ended up on the remote island.
But quickly I felt that it was the same over and over again. I didn't mind the gore at all, some of it actually got under my skin (no pun intended), I didn't even mind the animal cruelty, animal lover as I am, as it's just fiction. But I had a hard time getting invested in the characters and - quite frankly - telling them apart.
Also, I found myself not caring about who lived or died or if ANY of them lived (which some of the “flashforward” interviews suggest that at least one does). For a story to work you have to have someone to root for. This is the same reason I didn't like Hostel, because the main characters were all jack-asses.
It's a rare thing for me to not finish a book, but I will give the rest of this one a pass.
Maybe, someday, when I'm hard-pressed for reading material, I will finish it.
Gave up. Cool body horror tropes aren't a great excuse for Stephen King-esque crudeness, nor for the amount of animal cruelty in here.
Honestly screw this book. It leaves you feeling uncomfortable in your own skin. Brilliantly written horror
What a fun and insane ride this book was. Characters were fun to read, the scenes got extremely gory, and the ever looming fear of infection always present makes this book a hard one to put down.
This isn't for everyone though, there are some scenes that will stick with you long after putting the book down. I recommend this to any horror junkie, anyone interested in horror, and anyone that has a strong stomach for body horror.
Contains spoilers
This was an AI recommendation for a reading challenge. It sounded great but it was such a let down for me.
The start was great. It was atmospheric to a government science experiment being unleashed on an unsuspecting group of people. The detail was great and really put you in the mood for the horror that is to come. Then that’s it. The rest of the book was draining to read. The atmosphere was quickly striped away for long and mostly unnecessary backgrounds of each character.
I was looking forward to a book that would really scare me but instead of frights we get gore. I will say that the author does an excellent job at describing gore. Sadly, though most of the gory scenes felt cheap and forced. They weren’t needed and the characters had to make some stupid decisions to receive these outcomes.
Once you find out that the “monster” is tape worms and all you must do is not touch them the fear factor is lost. The very first gore scene involves the only adult on the island making the stupidest decision in a horror book with absolutely no reasoning. There isn’t even a paranormal side of the story to draw the characters into making these decisions.
Through out the rest of the book you are handed gore with no substance to appease us for the lack of horror the book was supposed to contain. The turtle scene was the worst. I get killing the turtle but the way it was done and the amount of time spent on it was terrible.
This author could have done better, and I truly can’t understand the choices made for this book. There were moments especially at the beginning where I genuinely thought that this would be a horror story. I would recommend not reading this.
Great horror, will never read it again so help me God.
Did NOT expect the biggest horror on this book to be Shelley
At some point in the last year, I started Nick Cutter's “The Troop” on audiobook and enjoyed the equivalent of the first few chapters enough to move to checking out the physical copy.
From the first chapter, we find out that there's a man on the loose who has an insatiable hunger beyond anything the typical human experiences. We also meet Scoutmaster Tim, and a troop of 5 14 year-old boys who are already on an island near Prince Edward Island in Canada. The ever-dwindling man shows up on the island and things go sideways pretty quickly.
Now, this is all a good premise for a pretty scary tale and I'm a sucker for coming of age stories. However, Nick Cutter just went too far! And that's saying something when the first blurb on the cover is a strong recommendation from Stephen King.
I found it hard to believe that Scoutmaster/Doctor Tim would make so many bad decisions before he was infected. Would you bring a clearly ill and possibly deranged adult male into a cabin where your 5 young charges are staying?
The devolution of Shelley was ludicrous and seemed like an excuse to throw in tons of very disturbing animal abuse (I had to skim these because they were so graphic). It also didn't make sense that not one person ever figured out that Shel was so supremely evil and shouldn't have been in the Scouts (or just about anywhere).
The news articles, interviews, and other bumpers between chapters actually took away from the momentum of the story and shared information that want really necessary.
In fact, most of the characters fell into stereotypes and weren't very well fleshed out. And the ending, well, it was too much and not enough. I'm not sure I'll be reading any more of this author's books, although I still have one of his other books (not under this pen name) on my to-read list.
Very good at what it's aiming to do, and that makes me never want to read or think of this book ever again.
It was decent. I enjoyed the writing and I'll definitely be reading more Cutter, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the overall plot. I did quite enjoy the first third or so, in particular, but after that was so-so for me. My biggest gripe is the use of flashforward to the interviews. They just brought everything to a screeching halt and completely ruined the suspense by revealing too much. The plot itself wasn't terribly original either, and I didn't much care for the ending.
On a side note, the last two books I read completely overused “the __-thing.” Can all horror authors get together and find a new word for humans who have been transformed into something else? I swear I read that phrase at least 100 times in the past 2 weeks. Oh no, Bob is an undead shell of a man now. He's now “the Bob-thing” lurching towards us! Watch out!
UNLESS YOU ARE A HORROR JUNKIE VETERAN AVOID
I difnt listen , I regretted it
First , the hypocrate oarh ain't that deap , it ain't that deap , why bare you operating on a stranger
I thought I would like horror , I was wrong , so very wrong I kept going to see who lives who die
It's the worst kind of horror for me , parasite , body horror , desperation , pandemic , animal cruelty, I skimmed over the descriptions too , couldn't bare it
Felt like crying because it's also very sad , a bunch of middle schoolers , and is horrifying , also military bioweapon aspec
I mean if you into that stuff maybe you'll like it , but the average Joe wont he will hat it , so,e horrors fans too
I didnt want to rate too low because of my newly discovered this kind of horror bias ( edit this gvd me anxiety do 1 star , )
I didnt enjoy the experience , erasing the story from my kindle to never reread
The first piece of horror media in a long time that has made me physically uncomfortable. Outbreak meets lord of the flies, if both of those things were cranked up to a hundred. A harrowing story that manages to find the soft pieces of humanity in an impossible situation. While also being deeply upsetting, a page turner to be sure - but avoid if you're squeamish.
This book was okay.
i think i was disappointed because people set the bar so high. multiple people said this was one of the scariest books theyve ever read and i cant believe that.
the gore and body horror was squirm-worthy but nothing truly fear-inducing ever transpired. more than one of the child-characters is unlikable so i didnt care when they were gone.
the snippets of post-story interviewing and what not wasnt the best. it made the story drag and gave away too much of what was happening in real time.
though it wasnt as scary as id hoped, there were a handful of very nice excerpts about friendship and death- not that i was expecting them here lol
this is not scary nor disturbing, it's just gross.
pretty much all the characters (even the author at this point) are sexist, macho and homophobic
the fuck with the animal torture ? is it a unfulfilled phantasm for the author, so he wrote a book to be appease ?
what's the point ? do you guys, have enjoyment reading a book that grossed you out ?
absolutely not.
I can't read anymore books by male authors writing about violence, just for the fact to be violent and they're disgusting misogynistic thinking. Go to therapy man.
“How could you hide from a murderer who lived under your skin?”
I have finally completed the quest of finding a book that was similar to “The Ruins” by Scott Smith. This was so much better.
I absolutely LOVED this book. Everything about it had me on the edge of my seat, and made me extremely nauseous at times. Cutter's writing is stellar. I cannot get enough of this story, from the body horror to the literal and figurative creature that is Shelley, it is perfection. 11/10.
absolutely brutal and couldn't put it down. took off a star for some gratuitously abusive descriptions but overall a very effectively disturbing horror novel!!
The Troop is the first book of Nick Cutter's that I have ever picked up and I can now happily say it won't be the last.
This gave me everything that I could possibly need for a great horror novel. It was tense, gory and had me squirming. When I say squirming, that is an understatement but it's the best way to explain how I felt without spoiling anything.
The characters were also fantastically written and they each brought something unique to the story. Some had me rooting for them, some had me hoping they would be the next victim... I had great fun and I was on the edge of my seat from the very first chapter.
And the ending?? THE ENDING??
I want to give a quick shoutout to Alli for inspiring me to pick this up. I always trust your judgement and this didn't steer me wrong.
I would recommend looking up the trigger and content warnings for this book if you're going to decide to pick it up.
I can't wait to check out more by this author!
A gripping, horrific novel full of gore that is shocking from start to end. Highly recommended.
masterful atmosphere and visceral descriptions but hampered by weak characterization. relies too heavily on the gross-factor
“It was the most desolate place he'd ever seen. It echoed the desolation inside of him, the emptiness...the emptiness.”
Yellowjackets, but with Boy Scouts, then exchange the cultish vibes for a very lite sci-fi infection à la The Ruins meets Cabin Fever. Not nearly as gross as I was hoping for given the word of mouth, but I certainly appreciated the group dynamics and the brief moments of body horror. Consider me intrigued by Cutter's style, and I look forward to checking out more: next up being The Deep.