I never been so uncomfortable when reading a book. The body horror og and gore was intense, and the real horror the kids went through, not only in the camp but also outside, was gutwrenching. Well done.

The character gallery was a bit large for me, so at times it was difficult to follow, but the high pace and high stake story made up for it.

Cuckoo is not a book for the squeamish, but a must read for fans of unsettling/gory horror.

3.75 rounded up

Beginning in the 90s, Cuckoo follows a handful of queer kids kidnapped and taken to a conversion camp in the middle of nowhere, for the crime of being themselves. They’re subjected to gruelling work and torment from the camp staff, alongside internal and external prejudice. As they’re consistently beaten down, their mental health suffers further from strange dreams and even stranger creature. The kids become a family intent on fighting back against the hate, abuse, and the blooming mortality - queer kids are dying and nobody cares. They’re expendable, with their families already wishing they were different, the camp latches on and takes advantage in more ways than one.

Cuckoo cruelly explores the abuse these kids face at the hands of pretty much everyone and everything in their lives. It's overflowing with fatphobia, internalised homophobia, and descriptions of kids genitals, sexual acts, and sexual imagery. Its detailed descriptions of their bodies and sexual activity was repugnant and gratuitous, serving more like fodder for paedophiles than any other narrative purpose. It also had multiple extremely detailed references to period sex, alongside frequent rape/SA. The violence and abuse continues this exploitation, leaving the kids begging for the end. It's also rife with pop culture references, and is clearly heavily influenced by horror icons, most notably Stephen King and Clive Barker, and beloved media, being incredibly similar to IT with a dose of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing - though it is self aware enough to note this influence.

The book has a strong start but then volleys the pace between captivating action and drudging slowness. The horrors return to the group as adults, again similar to IT, except with less mocking and more drugs for a quick and tidy ending. There is a horde of characters, with POVs from a few, but I found they were not too distinguishable from each other. I enjoyed the supernatural horror, and the pervasive abuse the kids are subject to was done well. There was WAY too much gratuitous sex, outnumbering Stephen King with descriptions of children's genitalia. The queer identities were rigorously explored, though the internalised queerphobia was too heavy handed, as was the fatphobia - god forbid someone with a bit of extra weight be deserving of love - both things I had issue with in Manhunt. I prefer Cuckoo of the two (as you can probably tell by the fact I finished it): the story is more compelling and the issues were handled better. I love all horror, the more twisted the better, but not at someone else's expense. The impact of 'religion' is weaved throughout, sometimes subtly and sometimes smacks you in the face, with reflections and comparisons easily made to today's political climate with increasing attacks on LGBTQ+ people and rights. Conversion camps are still legal, and the same abuse continues to be perpetrated 30 years on from the books setting. It's an unflinching exploration of how that affects these kids. The supernatural horrors are fun but also acts as an allegory for a world that wishes to change these kids at the very core of who they are. They’re desperate for help but have nowhere to go, quite literally when they’re in the middle of nowhere but for every aspect of their wants and needs. They find homes within each other, forced to explore their deepest fears and desires, much like the queer community IRL.

The majority of the book is immersive and enjoyable, but I did find myself checking the % around the midpoint as things started to drag. It details the physical and psychological pains well, but as mentioned the superfluous fatphobia and graphic sex/genital descriptions ruined this for me. Almost everything is explained in graphic detail, including the smell of period blood more than once. The time jump and final showdown was too quick and easy, especially for something that has haunted them their entire lives. Overall it's decent and there's lots to analyse further, but these points reduced the star rating for me. Thank you to netgalley for the arc and queerphobes can get fucked.

I loved that the characters had the authenticity of queer youth combined with the dark and disturbing horror elements. It was difficult to read at points but I had prepared myself slightly before I began reading.

Cuckoo is a horror novel about a conversion camp that aims to make queer teens a whole new person, and a group of kids who fight their way out to stop it. In 1995, a group of queer teenagers forced by their parents to attend Camp Resolution realise that it is more than just abusive staff and religion: the camp is far darker than that, stealing their very selves. Despite this, they band together, find friends and lovers, and hatch a plan to escape, but even getting away isn't enough, and the survivors, now adults, have to try and stop it at the source.

Anyone who has read Felker-Martin's Manhunt is surely waiting with baited breath for this book, and Cuckoo didn't disappoint, as a book very different to Manhunt and yet still exploring what happens when the worst horror happens to queer people. Cuckoo has a big cast of protagonists and I was initially wary (after the prologue that serves as your horror 'here's what is going on' opener) that it would be too hard to tell the characters apart. However, by midway through, I wasn't worried, and had a good handle on the various characters, who all have different lives, flaws, and experiences. One of the things I enjoyed about the book wasn't the horror, but was the fact that it takes a bunch of different queer teens and imagines not only them under pressure, but then how they react as adults.

Notably, the book doesn't end with the 1995 narrative, but moves forward in time to the characters as adults (it's hard not to compare this to It), and I was excited when I realised it had done this, as it is so rare to get a good deconstruction of the aftereffects of extreme horror on the characters. This later part has to be a lot faster in pace and by the end quite action-centric, but you still get the chance to see that these characters are still broken, have grown up into adults not only dealing with the trauma of Camp Resolution, but also normal things, like relationships and grief and money and the difficulties of being queer in the world. A lot of stories about queer people only show one point in their lives, and a lot of horror stories don't deal with the aftermath, so combining these elements offers a different picture of survival.

In terms of the horror, there's unsurprisingly from the title body snatchers-style fear, alongside abuse and trying to survive in a desert, and a decent amount of body horror from the cosmic evil threat. I liked that the body snatcher stuff didn't focus too much on the protagonists not knowing who had 'turned' or not at the camp, as I find that kind of horror quite frustrating, but instead it was more about the wider implications in the world, particularly at the end (the ending has similarities to Alison Rumfitt's Tell Me I'm Worthless, playing with the horror's impact on a happy future). Felker-Martin makes the audience very aware of the horror tropes she is playing in, with plenty of overt and subtler references, and this is far more gory horror than scary, as a lot of queer horror seems to focus on at the moment.

Overall, the book plays with ideas of replacement and parents' anxieties around queer kids, particularly around the idea that having a queer child makes parents act like their child has been replaced because they aren't "normal", and what that might mean if they really were completely different. As conversion therapy horror, it really digs into the idea of what changing means and if it would even be the same person, making it actually quite a good exploration of the philosophical issues (never mind all the myriad other issues) with conversion therapy as a concept. I liked Cuckoo more than Manhunt, and some of that might be because I find its take on the subgenre it is in even more interesting (and also I liked the characters and their dynamics).

As with Manhunt and a lot of other queer horror out there at the moment, there's going to be people aren't going to 'get' it, either because they don't like the amount of body horror and sex or because they don't like having a load of messy, flawed characters who don't do the right thing all the time or even necessarily learn from things. For me, I really liked how it explored the horrors of conversion therapy and abusive families, but also toxic relationships to yourself and with others. The characters didn't all get neat resolutions or development, but how could they be expected to in a world in which this can happen to them? If the idea of the cuckoo and body replacement tells us anything, it is that anyone can really be anything underneath.

Cuckoo follows seven queer kids in the summer in 1995. They have been forced by their parents into a remote conversion camp due to being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Sixteen years later the survivors need to put an end to the horror before it’s too late.

This was an intriguing read with difficult topics. The writing was visceral and very graphic. I appreciate the messaging behind this book and what happened to the kids due to them just being their authentic selves. However, I did find it slightly confusing to follow each character because there was just too many. For example, it was hard to remember which characters were who because the transgender characters such as Shelby were referred to as their chosen name (Shelby) but then referred to by their dead name by the camp leaders. That said I would recommend this if you are in the headspace to handle these topics.

This was a very interesting book, with a brilliant premise and writing. The entire story was awful to read and had me feeling physically sick at certain points. The characters were easy to root for, even if my heart was breaking for them. So much as I loved the eerie and horrifying writing, I struggled with the plot a lot towards the last half of the book. It was hard to keep track of timelines and certain elements felt rushed and unfinished. Still, a deeply disturbing horror.