Cuckoo

my first felker-martin book! cuckoo has a big helping of stephen king's It in its DNA, and i think it's interesting to compare the two. in It, the adults of Derry are oblivious to the evils and harms that the kids can see. in Cuckoo, it's the fact that the kids are marginalised that allows them to be harmed w/ impunity - people see it but they don't care or they think its justified! the way this book treats fatness too i cant help but read as a reaction to ben hanscom and stephen kings complexes around fatness. i think there's an essay here and if i had the time baby I'd write it.

setting that aside: this book stands on its own two feet as a body horror! it takes the concept of conversion and exaggerates it into bodysnatching and shape changing, the horror of something else wearing your face and it being something your family could love more thank they do you. it's a queer perspective and a queer horror that hits for real. nasty goopy body horror imagery which is always a win for me! i liked the cast a lot overall, altho they felt a little unevenly baked as they moved into their adult selves. Mal in particular i think could have used just a bit more time in the oven? ymmv. the denouement plays out quickly but if i may briefly refer back to stephen king's It: that can be a blessing.

overall i quite enjoyed and ill be looking for her other books!

DNF at 53%. Desperately wanted to finish this but I have no idea who anyone is and at a certain point stopped caring. Too many characters and I kept going because I thought it'd eventually come to me, but it just sunk me deeper into confusion. I also had a very very hard time grasping what was happening in action scenes. It was simple shit, like describing where we were physically, or how these monsters were speaking/using the bodies of these kids. The camp aspect was fascinating, but even that I found a bit unrealistic? They've been kidnapped and taken to an undisclosed location and they're...doing dishes? Doing oral sex on each other in the middle of the night? Most of the teenagers who come back from those places talk about how they couldn't even speak to other kids or they'd be punished, so I found this hard to believe. I think it works for the plot that they are rebelling and getting away with it, but in real life, I think they'd face intense consequences more often.

I loved this concept and I really was interested in how these kids end up though. Just not for me. Thanks Netgalley and Publisher for letting me read this eARC in exchange for an unbiased review.