A review by themysterymaven
Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven

4.0

A shopping mall…a library…surely you’ve imagined what it must be like to venture in a place afterdark, when the crowds have dispersed and you have access to spaces and places without rules or roadblocks. An amusement park is one I always ponder, and this book lets you live out that possibility in the most horrifying of ways.

After a hurricane leaves a wake of devastation in parts of Florida, employees at the famed FantasticLand theme park remain barricaded inside. What happens as they await rescue is story of terror and savage survival: Lord of the Flies meets The Hunger Games set against a backdrop of Westworld.

Factions have been formed and blood is definitely shed. This isn’t some attempt at a fictitious Disney World; rather DW is mentioned as a main competitor to Fantasticland in the book. So, what you’re reading feels real and raw, the events uniquely unfolded through the witness testimony of a different person in each chapter. High praise to the author for writing through the lens of so many POVs, and it creates a really fun (yet gory) experience for the reader, as the full picture of events starts coming together piece by (sometimes bodily) piece through the different characters, each adding something new or solidifying a bit of the story previously glimpsed via an earlier chapter.

What happens when the power goes out and darkness descends? What would you do with no authority, no social media distraction, no escape in sight? Who would you be? And to quote the book: A person gets stupid when they become people. It’s scary to think how true this work of fiction could be….