The Troop was my first experience with Nick Cutter, and after reading this book, I want to spend more time with Mr. Cutter. This book was, for me, a masterpiece. An old-school horror. I could not put that book away, and when I had to, I thought about it all the time. This book was like a drug, and I needed it to survive. It is starting sweet. A scoutmaster wants to take five boys on a lovely trip on this uninhabited island without phones and technology. What can go wrong, right? Yeah, they are going to have a fantastic time. They will learn new skills to help them in the wild and probably have a nice bonfire. Sing scout songs or something like that. Yeah, that could be almost true, but not after you see the cover and a lovely sentence from Stephen King: “Scare the hell out of me, and I couldn’t put it down. Not for the faint-hearted”, and oh dear Stephen, you got me with this!
Now we know this book will have some weird shi… going on, and yeah, it does. After the boys and scoutmaster arrived on this lonely island with the hope that they would go camping, hiking, and all super duper things, this strange man showed up from nowhere—oh, right, strange, SICK, man. I would be like, “Hello? Are you lost? This is not a shelter for weird asses. Do back off back to the water or something, okay? This is a closed party, so take all those germs you have and freak off somewhere else.” But Scoutmaster Tim is not like me, and he said something like, “Oh no! Are you okay? Yeah, I have five underage young boys. Wanna come over, and we can check you up, maybe feed and talk?’ So yeah, he stayed. And this is a situation that will push that book forward. This man is not just sick. He will be the end of them. It would be best to read that book to learn more, but I will spoil one thing for you. Scoutmaster is stupid and will be the first out on this fun trip. Only God knows what five teenagers in danger in a terrifying and isolated place can do to survive. That’s it.
I really enjoyed Cutter’s style of writing and all the details he put into this book. For example, the main story goes on, and then he will throw some lab research reports into your face, and you will be like, what the hell is this? And then boom! Some lab trials on animals and their results, and the only thing you will think about is… Something is really fun… up! But you want to keep going, duh…
That book did all for me; it freaked me up and sometimes grossed me, but I wanted more! The ending did satisfy me, but I can’t say more so.
Writing 5/5 Plot 5/5 Ending 5/5