Playground

Was a fun concept and not as brutal as I expected. It was gross, especially the infamous page 40, but clever. this reminded me of Jigsaw in how a group of people go through different traps until there is a victor. I liked having alternating chapters of the parent's view, and the illustrations were thoughtful, though I wish there were more to show the playground equipment. Sometimes I had a hard time picturing it. Also the revenge story was an interesting approach, I felt sympathy for Rock and was glad he got to “play”

Haven't read The Slob yet, but being in circles with A. Prunty and CV Hunt means I'm quite aware of the noise Aron has been making over the last year or so. While Playground had been floating around my TBR for a while, I hadn't given it a lot of thought. Splatterpunk with kids...probably boring and predictable even if “popular” (for the genre). But a friend wanted to read it - and an opportunity to do that - with this genre? Yes!

We have a 290 page book, not a collection, not a series of interconnected shorts - a full proper novel sized book about kids getting fucked up on a playground. And while it is heavy on the (bad) metaphors, the story is actually almost character-driven, and the characters have history, and depth, and their own unique voice. By the time the blood starts truly pouring you actually give a shit about these people. The deaths, the tension and torture are relatively creative if occasionally predictable. So despite some errors and just bad metaphors, the writing won't blow you away, but for the genre it is I was overall impressed.

If the trigger words don't bother you, perhaps you've read the genre before - if you're on the fence on this, this is a great book to take a leap from and impale yourself on that fence.

and I just don't see any of that sexism spoken of here - she was a disgusting human being, and there is no word, no insult, unworthy of her. And seriously, this book had a Nazi in it without ever promoting hatred, or bigotry - that's some careful writing.

Horrible book, it's just gross and it doesn't even have a message or anything, it's just doing bad things because they can.

Furthermore, if you're trying to show the worst of humanity why not at least have a message,Martys for example it's another gory piece of media but at least it's though provoking with it's ending.

Here ? You'll see a father telling his kid to murder and use another girl body as a skateboard to pass a slide with saws, and the worst part? They always illustrate how a character die, most of the cast are children, so you get what I mean right?

This book for me, it's in the worst part of the horror genre, violence for the sake of it and trying to shock it's viewer in every way that it can, without having any story to tell. It's just lazy and boring

I would say this is actually pretty good for an extreme horror. Better than the two other books from this author that I have read, The Slob and Dark Assembly. 

The author did a great job with all the character distinctions, because there are 9 children, 4 parents, and 3 more characters, who are all central to the story. Having that many characters always overwhelms me, but they were very clear in my head. 

The plot was well done too, it was fast paced, very bingeable, I finished this in a couple hours actually. I always love the added effects of the artwork, it definitely alleviates the experience. 

The shock value of the book for me was probably 7/10. It could've been much much worse, especially with children involved, but it was okay. I'd like to make it clear that the horror is derived from the actual gore of the deaths and not the grief of losing the children or any of the consequences. 

In short, this book is like a Saw movie but with children and it's being broadcasted for the parents to watch and it's run by a horny old woman. 

A few plot holes here and there, but nothing too bad, nothing too ridiculous. I would've loved an epilogue though. 

I could have done without that chapter. The one everyone always talks about. The one that added nothing to the story. The one that didn't need to be there. The one that was used simply as shock factor. Yeah, that one. 
But the rest of the book was actually pretty good. Obviously you're warned about what you're going into. It's extreme horror with kids. That's not for everyone. But I felt this was well written and well executed. 

My review is for the paperback.
I already don't like the way the woman is treating Donnie while they at the playground in the rain.
Rock is enslaved to Geraldine Borden, and it's his horrible task to invite/entice people that are from low-income families that would be paid money and their children get to test the playground equipment in Geraldine Borden's so-called “playground” although all is not as it seems though.
I already know a lot about the plot of the book, due to watching reviews & analysis of this disturbing book on YouTube.
I'm only giving this book a 1 star rating because I don't like the plot of the book, it just isn't for me, I do like the author and their other books, but any fictional violence, torture, mutilation, maiming, or death of animals, babies, children in fictional extreme horror & splatterpunk books just fucking disgusts me