Book Review: The Troop

 

Rating: 4.5/5

From Goodreads: “The Troop scared the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. This is old-school horror at its best.” —Stephen King

This “grim microcosm of terror and desperation haunting” (Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author) follows a scout troop on a terrifying fight for survival when they come across a mysterious—and deadly—stranger in the Canadian wilderness.

Once every year, Scoutmaster Tim Riggs leads a troop of boys into the Canadian wilderness for a weekend camping trip—a tradition as comforting and reliable as a good ghost story around a roaring bonfire. But when an unexpected intruder stumbles upon their campsite—shockingly thin, disturbingly pale, and voraciously hungry—Tim and the boys are exposed to something far more frightening than any tale of terror. The human carrier of a bioengineered nightmare. A horror that spreads faster than fear. A harrowing struggle for survival with no escape from the elements, the infected…or one another.

Part Lord of the Flies, part 28 Days Later—and all-consuming—this tightly written, edge-of-your-seat thriller takes you deep into the heart of darkness, where fear feeds on sanity…and terror hungers for more.

Spoiler Free Review!

Nick Cutter is a phenomenal writer.  This book felt was the literary equivalent of witnessing a car crash - disgusting, terrifying, but impossible to look away from.  

When an emaciated, sick man stumbles into a boy scout retreat, the doctor leading the troop feels like he must help.  However, when The Scoutmaster lets the man into the camp, he never could have predicted the horrors that would soon follow.

The Troop is body horror done well.  Definitely my least favorite horror subgenre, I never would have thought I would have enjoyed this book as much as I did.  While there were a couple passages I wouldn't mind having some brain bleach for, even for the squeamish, this book is not worth passing up!

So, not particularly a spoiler, but more of a trigger warning.  Please be aware that this book contains graphic animal abuse scenes.  I had to skip a few of them, and I highly recommend if you are sensitive to the subject matter that rather than avoiding the whole book, you also skim those passages.  

Overall, this was a read I will not soon stop thinking about.  Cannot wait to read more by Nick Cutter!