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A review by lisacanteven
The Camp by Nancy Bush
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.25
Somehow I read this entire book, cover to cover. All I wanted to do every minute was quit.
I picked The Camp up because it is set in the forests near the Oregon coast, and I just moved to Portland. As I drive through the forests here I always contemplate how many bodies have been hidden among the trees with the intention to never be found again. I've been looking for a book to explore this possibility since. I can confidently say that this book did not help with this fascination.
First off there are too many characters, too many POV's, and too many irrelevant side stories: something about a surrogate, separated spouses, traumatic brain injury, etc. Yes, you read that right- a traumatic brain injury. One of the main characters was attacked her senior year related to what she saw at camp. It is very quickly confirmed by the author who attacked Emma, but it is such a brief moment that I almost missed it. No redemption for Emma there especially since none of the people in her life seem to know or just don't care why she was attacked so many years ago.
You're probably wondering how a character with a TBI that left her in an assisted living situation worked in this story. The answer is that she didn't. The way the author wrote this character was completely problematic. Emma actually had the most insight on what was happening throughout the whole book, but no one listened to here. I believe Emma's character was just a tool used as an unreliable narrator throughout the story. This is an example of ablest representation. The characters who did care for Emma were too wrapped up in their own twisted stuff to care for Emma properly, and then the characters who didn't trust her made it very awkwardly known. One ADULT character actually said to Emma, "I'm so sorry about your disability." Cool.
Aside from the worst offense of ableism, the writing was awful. Like written by a 16yo boy awful. There were things like the term "galumphed" used multiple times within a few pages. Surely there are synonyms for that word, especially as I feel it wasn't used correctly in the first place. She even uses the term, "pooh-poohed." Many times I felt this book was written by a child.
So we have ableism and bad writing to blame for my single star review, but I saved the big one for now. There was a lot of creepy pedophile behavior from the men in this book. None of that behavior was ever addressed as wrong by anyone or anything in the book. It was more like, "silly Donovan likes to look at young girls in their bikinis. Oh silly Donovan." Donovan does get his just desserts, but not because he was probably a registered s*x offender but because the killer just didn't like him. But it's okay bc there were multiple pedos in this book, but their behavior was normalized in this story. It was gross. One of the husbands wasn't a predator of the sexual kind, but he did beat his wife. No one seemed to care though.
In the end the killer was discovered and it wasn't even worth it. His reason for killing had to do with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, but the author didn't put a name to his illness. She just let it go unspoken, but that's what it was. If you're keeping track that is now two different characters with mental illnesses just as a trope. Let's be more creative, Ms. Nancy.
I would never recommend this book. If you read through my whole review, you pretty much got the idea of the entire story. The only positive I have is that the fog was described pretty well. As someone who has lived in this Oregon coastal fog, it really is unlike any fog I've been in. If it was as sentient as Ms. Nancy described I just wish it would have swallowed this entire manuscript so it was never published. Too bad it didn't.
I picked The Camp up because it is set in the forests near the Oregon coast, and I just moved to Portland. As I drive through the forests here I always contemplate how many bodies have been hidden among the trees with the intention to never be found again. I've been looking for a book to explore this possibility since. I can confidently say that this book did not help with this fascination.
First off there are too many characters, too many POV's, and too many irrelevant side stories: something about a surrogate, separated spouses, traumatic brain injury, etc. Yes, you read that right- a traumatic brain injury. One of the main characters was attacked her senior year related to what she saw at camp. It is very quickly confirmed by the author who attacked Emma, but it is such a brief moment that I almost missed it. No redemption for Emma there especially since none of the people in her life seem to know or just don't care why she was attacked so many years ago.
You're probably wondering how a character with a TBI that left her in an assisted living situation worked in this story. The answer is that she didn't. The way the author wrote this character was completely problematic. Emma actually had the most insight on what was happening throughout the whole book, but no one listened to here. I believe Emma's character was just a tool used as an unreliable narrator throughout the story. This is an example of ablest representation. The characters who did care for Emma were too wrapped up in their own twisted stuff to care for Emma properly, and then the characters who didn't trust her made it very awkwardly known. One ADULT character actually said to Emma, "I'm so sorry about your disability." Cool.
Aside from the worst offense of ableism, the writing was awful. Like written by a 16yo boy awful. There were things like the term "galumphed" used multiple times within a few pages. Surely there are synonyms for that word, especially as I feel it wasn't used correctly in the first place. She even uses the term, "pooh-poohed." Many times I felt this book was written by a child.
So we have ableism and bad writing to blame for my single star review, but I saved the big one for now. There was a lot of creepy pedophile behavior from the men in this book. None of that behavior was ever addressed as wrong by anyone or anything in the book. It was more like, "silly Donovan likes to look at young girls in their bikinis. Oh silly Donovan." Donovan does get his just desserts, but not because he was probably a registered s*x offender but because the killer just didn't like him. But it's okay bc there were multiple pedos in this book, but their behavior was normalized in this story. It was gross. One of the husbands wasn't a predator of the sexual kind, but he did beat his wife. No one seemed to care though.
In the end the killer was discovered and it wasn't even worth it. His reason for killing had to do with mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder, but the author didn't put a name to his illness. She just let it go unspoken, but that's what it was. If you're keeping track that is now two different characters with mental illnesses just as a trope. Let's be more creative, Ms. Nancy.
I would never recommend this book. If you read through my whole review, you pretty much got the idea of the entire story. The only positive I have is that the fog was described pretty well. As someone who has lived in this Oregon coastal fog, it really is unlike any fog I've been in. If it was as sentient as Ms. Nancy described I just wish it would have swallowed this entire manuscript so it was never published. Too bad it didn't.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Misogyny, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexism, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Stalking, Ableism, Sexual harassment, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Dementia, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Body horror, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Blood, and Adult/minor relationship