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misterushi's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
mythos05's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, and Blood
moosereads1's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
However, that’s where the good parts stopped. The scenes with Geraldine were just disgusting, and not only that but they were just poorly written. So many parts were horribly written. The descriptions were just strange and some of the lines were unbearably cheesy and cliche, especially toward the end. Overall it was disgusting, brutal, and all over the place in terms of writing style. Can’t say I recommend at all.
Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
eliias's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Animal death, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Pedophilia, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Homophobia
janachigo's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Bullying
madelinequinnee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I’ve rated it 4 because as someone who loves horror but is also extremely desensitised to it, this did have a big effect on me and left me disgusted and horrified. However, the writing wasn’t great, and i think the whole character of Geraldine was written in a sexist light. For example, her ‘villian origin story’ is that she can’t have kids, like that’s the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to a woman? Also, the way female genitalia was written was highly misogynistic at times, like how it was described as dirty if not washed with SOAP, which is incredibly dangerous btw since you should NEVER EVER put soap down there!!! I don’t know whether the author is just uneducated about the female body or is misogynistic, but either way, very weird choice.
The deaths were incredibly tragic and disgusting. Sadie’s demise affected me the most, I had to take a break from reading and go touch some grass after that scene because YIKES!
I don’t know whether i would necessarily recommend this book, since it’s very dark and gross, but if you want something that’s gonna stick with you and potentially make you feel quite ill, maybe give this a go! check trigger warnings tho please omg
Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail
mortemidnight's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Child death, Gore, Child abuse, Cursing, Homophobia, Bullying, Animal death, Pedophilia, Infertility.
I went into the book knowing all these trigger warnings and thus had a general idea what it was going to be about. The book was like Saw meets Final Destination meets Squid Game but then with children, which makes it even worse. As a splatter punk / body horror / torture porn enjoyer I could appreciate the gruesome and violent deaths in the book. The book helped me out of a reading slump and I was invested from start to finish.
I hope my list of trigger warnings might help someone make an informed decision to read this book. I loved it, but it is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea. Read with caution.
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Gore, and Violence
Moderate: Bullying, Cursing, Homophobia, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, and Sexual content
Minor: Animal death and Infertility
alexlouise97's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Pedophilia, Rape, Excrement, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, and Toxic friendship
sabrina_the_alien's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
wwmck's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
a). to my absolute chagrin, i … wouldn’t exactly say i enjoyed this book so much as i was morbidly hooked by it. finished it within two days.
b). i’m about to critique and hypothesise upon a book that admittedly doesn’t really offer up more than the hallmarks of its genre. i have a major gripe with modern splatterpunk and it’s largely pointless nature I guess. where it’s creation was founded in rebellion against censorship, those walls have now by and large come down, at least by a great margin. so there’s a real lack of motivation - i feel - behind the senseless depravity found in splatterpunk literature.
anyways, i was pleasantly (?) surprised by this book. there’s a skeleton of something genuinely enthralling here. i grew up on saw (weird kid with unfiltered internet access) and with a love of the whole “death game” concept. so the twisted playground at the centre of this morbid tale was unfortunately right up my alley. obviously the extra twist of the knife, with the victims being children was deeply uncomfortable - but they’re written in a real “wise (?) beyond their years” sort of way so i could mostly just read them as adults. soften the blow a little i guess? back to my point i guess, the groundwork for some great philosophising on childhood abuse and cyclical violence is laid bare within certain beats and as a reader you really are rooting for a surprising number of these characters. i absolutely appreciated the “happy” (?) ending, wherein the absolute monsters of utter evil met their violent end. tanya made it out. three cheers for the diva. if she’d died as well that would’ve really been the straw that broke the camels back for me personally.
ANYWAYS: there’s a decent book in here somewhere, but just when it gets …. not good or entertaining but like … enticing i guess? - aron beauregard throws in some fuck ass bullshit with geraldine or something. truth be told i’d argue “playground” exists closer in nature to “dipper goes to taco bell” than any sort of horror novel. at points it read like a 14 year old boy sat down to write the most grotesque sadistic drivel he could come up with. i’m not sure if an editor was involved here and i don’t care to check because if they were, some peer review was desperately needed. beauregard’s writing again feels immature in a more literary sense, in that some good metaphorical parallels were set up, only for him to quite literally write “look at this metaphor i just accidentally wrote, let’s just say it again more plainly”. it just beats you over the head again and again as if things weren’t glaring obvious to begin with. there’s no “between the lines” here, everything is as tell not show as one could manage.
in some alternate dimension there exists a version of this story that could’ve been pretty great actually. but the constant reminder of geraldine’s tuna box just fuckin like whatever dude. with that said, beauregard sometimes demonstrates at minimum an understanding of good writing. every so often i’d read a passage and ask myself “where was this 5 seconds ago?” - in regards to his literary prowess. with that said this motherfucker seems very capable of viscerally describing extreme violence, yet his descriptions of some of the “playgrounds” was flimsy and confusing. i found myself at odds with what i was picturing and kept having to re read certain descriptions because i could not for the life of me pick up what he was putting down.
at the end of the day, i’m only disappointing myself. this book never had the intentions or claimed to be thought provoking. it’s mean, sick, sadistic, and thoroughly over the top. it’s a splatterpunk book. yay for genre fiction? i think the reason i’ve felt the need to linger on this for so long is because it was an uncomfortably captivating read. and like idk. idk. i truly believe this could be reworked into a more satisfying theme exploration. i hope tom, molly, tanya, and donnie went on to live a calm and fulfilling life filled with absolutely zero mentions of a playground.
#rotinhellgeraldine #rockredemptionarc
oh god actually on the subject of rock, like fucking good god we gettt itttttt. like from the jump you know how that whole situation is gonna play out. aron please im begging you for some subtly, for some - rather for less of like, everything i guess. really sucked any kind of climax out of the books ending when so many chapters would basically end with “rock is getting there guys, he’s gonna save the day soon”.
maybe i’ll be the one to rewrite this. i can guarantee that THAT chapter and anything even vaguely similar would be scrubbed out so clean you could see your own reflection. fuck the scat people #kinkshamingisok
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Incest, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail