Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

33 reviews

semisinful's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I really loved this book,

seeing an autistic character so well represented was the icing on the cake of what makes this book special and important to me. I don’t see a lot of queer horror with happy endings and this just made me smile a lot.

Thank you Chuck Tingle.

This book was delightful and made me cry every time her chosen family accepted her autistic quirks. I’m lucky to have a family and a chosen family that accept me for my quirks and seeing it represented this way in fiction is so important.

Thank you for this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Torture, Violence, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Ableism, Sexism, and Sexual assault

vixenreader's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

A call to love in the face of self-righteousness and wilful ignorance, this book is horrifying, entertaining, and incredibly loving to those who need it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Bullying, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, and Abandonment

Minor: Drug use, Misogyny, and Alcohol

Be aware of people vomiting bugs out of their mouths, gay conversion therapy, using religion for hate and oppression, and demon imagery.

trashgobby's review against another edition

dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Religious bigotry, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Gore, Medical content, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Confinement, Drug use, Gun violence, Torture, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

cluelessavian's review against another edition

dark funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Gore and Car accident

Minor: Ableism

shelfdeprecation's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Car accident, and Abandonment

Minor: Cursing

clichemarker's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

This book felt like Grace Chastity meets Lost Causes of Bleak Creek.
While some parts were a bit predictable,

That twist at the beginning of the love interest dying was crazy.

And that world building! Like you're introduced to these creatures, and they're given a solid set of rules and characteristics, and that shit stayed consistent!
The autism rep is great (being explicitly stated) and you can't help but root for these main characters.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, and Car accident

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Ableism, Body horror, Gaslighting, and Abandonment

cakehatwombat's review against another edition

emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Gives a supernatural angle that allows for catharsis for both the characters and the audience, which I really liked.

They literally exorcise the demon of 'don't be gay', it's not subtle. It is satisfying, though, having something concrete they can defeat, even if they can't fix fundamentalist Christianity more broadly. They can save themselves and others from at least one horrible thing, y'know? Also all the demons horribly maim and then kill the people running the camp, so like, very affirming.

I liked Rose a lot- I always like curious characters who, like me, would click on every single object or npc in a video game to double check if it's interactable. 

OH, very important:

gay kids all make it out okay in the end! No dead black guy!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Body horror, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Minor: Ableism and Medical content

For a book that centers around a gay conversion camp, the book doesn't talk much about the day-to-day reality or go into really intense detail about the emotional and religious abuse that happens there. Like, it obviously happens, but

the characters don't remember most of what happened. The part that the mc remembers clearly is being tied down and having a demon possess her, which is obviously upsetting, but

the really heavy stuff is avoided. Camps like these are obviously deeply traumatizing, and the characters in the book are clearly fucked up bc of it, but the horror of this book doesn't capitalize on (exploit is too extreme, but do you get what I mean?) the reality of places like this. The horror is supernatural and beatable. TL;DR much less intense than you would assume based on the name and premise. If you can stomach reading articles about actual gay conversion camps then this is nothing. I cannot speak to any type of response from personal experience. For the vomit, the mc

vomits up flies, and while it is described in detail the first time and she is very horrified by it, it happens often enough that she kinda becomes numb to it? She also discovers the cause of it, which helps her deal with it, I think. She vomits up flies bc she's possessed by a demon who is contracted to keep her from thinking gay thoughts, not bc she ingested or incubated any bugs.

Also, there are no tags for bugs or insects, which I'm surprised by? Anyway, there are definitely bugs in the book. If worms or flies are your nopes, then this book is not for you.

hyphae's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Homophobia, Violence, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Ableism, Confinement, and Injury/Injury detail

dragonnarrative's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, Self harm, Sexism, Stalking, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Outing

Minor: Domestic abuse

twiller's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

This book is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, fucking LOVE Rose Darling she is the character of all time she has so much personality and I love just existing in her head for a lil while. I’m not autistic specifically but am neurodivergent and she’s one of my fav portrayals of neurodivergence maybe ever; Chuck Tingle KILLED IT w/ her. I also find Chuck Tingle’s writing super interesting in general, the first person present combined with blunt descriptions of emotion the skirt the line of the show-don’t-tell “rule” (something which Chuck Tingle openly disregards anyway) is rly interesting. On the other hand, I feel the body language in this book is severely lacking. I rly love the dialogue but the complete lack of character movement to accompany is almost distracting. It makes it hard to rly get a feel for these characters, especially the ones that are introduced later, which sucks.

I’m also not obsessed with the ending. There’s certainly a level of catharsis to it but I feel like “and then all the BIG MEANIE ASSHOLES got fucking YOINKED and DIED and WENT TO HELL” is a lil,,, simplistic to say the least. I felt like Smith n the pastor guy actually got some decent depth in the last few chapters, showing how they rly do think they are being compassionate, in their own twisted ways. Perhaps I was just expecting this book to be smth it isn’t, but I thought the ending would be much more humanist and love-focused (as Tingle’s work tends to be), maybe even showing the perpetrators some of the compassion they refused to show their victims. Not a terrible ending, but not rly what I specifically was looking for

So yeah, mixed bag. That being said, I still think it’s an interesting read and I would generally recommend it on the strength of its unique concepts alone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Violence, Blood, and Car accident

Moderate: Ableism