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A review by selendrea
Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven
Did not finish book. Stopped at 51%.
I can't begin to describe how disappointed I was reading this book. Fantasticland should be right up my alley. I love depictions of humanity losing their sanity when they're pushed to the edge. This book was not that. No one was pushed to the edge. As a psychologist, I was incredibly frustrated with the lack of sense this plot had. No, people do not devolve into killing one another brutally when the lights go out without a single other provocation. No, people do not necessarily devolve into killing one another despite there being plenty of resources to go around. The only thing I felt was reasonable was the fact that the survivors broke up into distinct groups/camps. Minimal group paradigms do demonstrate that humans can show prejudice and in-group favoritism for even arbitrary groups (e.g., what area of the park they worked in). But the jump from group membership becoming important and salient to all-out murder is still incredibly far fetched. The author does not take the time to detail how we get from point A to point B, and instead takes a huge leap for the sake of shock value.
Although I think the interview format was unique and engaging, it has a huge flaw, in my opinion. We jump from perspectives and characters so quickly that I did not have the time to develop a genuine emotional connection to any of them. Why care when they die? Vastly more successful horror novels work because you feel a deep pit in your stomach at the thought of a character dying - their deaths mean something. Without the time and prose spent building up characters, their motivations, and their relationships, their deaths feel like little more than fodder for a fast-paced plot. Many people compare this to Lord of the Flies, but do you know why that novel was far more impactful? It takes the time to world build, to delve into the motivations and relationships of the stranded boys, and therefore you feel something when violence ensues.
If I am to believe that the take away of this novel is thatKids These Days are too addicted to their phones and show virtually no humanity when those phones are no longer usable , I don't believe Bockoven made this point in an articulate or thoughtful manner. It feels shallow at best. Again, I think this could have been a vastly more successful plot if it took the time to build characters and create a realistic reason for the degradation of the survivors' psychological well-being, like lack of resources, a misunderstanding, etc.
Although I think the interview format was unique and engaging, it has a huge flaw, in my opinion. We jump from perspectives and characters so quickly that I did not have the time to develop a genuine emotional connection to any of them. Why care when they die? Vastly more successful horror novels work because you feel a deep pit in your stomach at the thought of a character dying - their deaths mean something. Without the time and prose spent building up characters, their motivations, and their relationships, their deaths feel like little more than fodder for a fast-paced plot. Many people compare this to Lord of the Flies, but do you know why that novel was far more impactful? It takes the time to world build, to delve into the motivations and relationships of the stranded boys, and therefore you feel something when violence ensues.
If I am to believe that the take away of this novel is that