Title: The Troop

Author: Nick Cutter

Publisher: Gallery Books 2016

Genre: Horror

Pages: 384

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Perpetual - NPR Horror

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.

This was a recommendation from one of my favorite podcasts: Currently Reading. And it is not for the feint of heart. This is hardcore body horror (but not in the trippy way like Mexican Gothic). This one is very gorey and made me say “ew” out loud many times. We get a mix of contagion horror with Lord of the Flies focused on five boys and one adult on an isolated island. From there, I basically knew how the story was going to devolve, but was all in for the ride. My biggest complaint was the fact that they allude to the ending about 75 pages from the ending. I would have rather have been surprised by the ending than guess based off of the clues. And i did have a few qualms about the back stories of the boys, especially Shelly. I was not really into adding a character like him into the story.

Next up on the TBR pile: