Cuckoo
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3.2 • 13 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A Best Book of 2024 (NPR) • A Locus Award Finalist
The USA Today bestselling novel from Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of Manhunt, where a group of teens must stay true to themselves while in a conversion camp from hell.
"A soaring, boundless ode to queer survival. It's flat-out mesmerizing."—Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie
Something evil is buried deep in the desert. It wants your body. It wears your skin.
In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face to face with it. They survived—but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person.
Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it's too late.
The fate of the world depends on it.
"With Cuckoo, Felker-Martin appoints herself the new High Priestess of splatter."—Tony Tulathimutte, author of National Book Award finalist Rejection
Also by Gretchen Felker-Martin:
Manhunt
Black Flame
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this ambitious and devastating coming-of-age tale, Felker-Martin (Manhunt) digs into the trauma of growing up in a culture that wants queer youth erased and replaced. In 1995, a group of seven teens are abducted and brought to a conversion camp based at a remote ranch, where they face brutal punishment from camp leaders and cruel counselors. As the group unravels the otherworldly horror at the heart of the camp, they must fight for their lives in the desert, hundreds of miles from anywhere. Sixteen years after their escape, those left alive realize that the entity that failed to claim them remains, and they reunite to confront the Cuckoo one last time. Comparisons to Stephen King's It feel inevitable, owing to the story structure and themes of childhood trauma and the camaraderie of the marginalized, but Felker-Martin surpasses her influences to create something fresh, brutal, and utterly singular. No punches are pulled, either in terms of violence or emotional impact, and the ending offers no pat answers, trusting readers to draw their own conclusions. Laying bare grief, terror, and the tenderness that makes it all matter, this is horror at its best.
