Camp Resolution is a brutal and degrading conversion camp for parents to turn their LGBTQ teens into the cishet kids they want them to be. But in the summer of 1996, a group of teens at the camp begin to suspect that it hides something even darker. This is the latest by Gretchen Felker-Martin, author of the excellent Manhunt, and much like that book it is a harrowing, frenzied masterpiece. I'll just tell you at the top: this book is exceptional, and you should read it. But if you want more convincing than just 'I said so', here we go: The first thing that truly stands out is Felker-Martin's skill at character, at psychology. We saw this in Manhunt , and once again Felker-Martin demonstrates an incredible talent for getting inside the heads of her characters. Even the character we follow for the prologue, a mother suppressing her concerns about sending her daughter to Camp Resolution, is a fully-fleshed person, a scathing and disturbing portrait of a woman simult
Twenty years ago, 18-year-old Joanne Neilson, local celebrity for her feats on the swim team, left the house to take the family dog on a walk through the woods. The dog came home; Joanne did not. Now, the remaining Neilson siblings - loner Aggie, family man Alex, and Bailey - estranged from the others due to his plans for a true crime docuseries about the disappearance - are led back to those same woods by a videotape showing an impossible recording of the day their family was broken apart. Keating imbues this novella with a fantastic sense of place. This is a region Keating knows well, and she blends that knowledge with a clear love of nature and an inventive streak. The weird woods of Cannon Park - so named for the regular booming of the tide in the caverns beneath - are realised with enough grounding and clarity that the emergence of clearly unnatural phenomena becomes truly unsettling. Mixing in real-world strange landmarks, like magnetic hills, is inspired, blurring the distincti