by Gretchen Felker-Martin
In 1995 seven kids are sent out to the desert by people who only want the best for them, with the hopes that the good people at Camp Resolution will smooth all those pesky nonconformities away. You see, the kids who board the bus to Camp Resolution are not the same ones who step off of it at the end of the Summer. Something happens to them out there, something horrible. Structurally, the book hearkens back to Stephen King’s It which also features a cast of seven kids bonded by trauma returning to a site of horror they thought they’d escaped long ago. Like the Loser’s Club, these kids are not safe with their birth families and must find that support and solidarity in each other. Like the Loser’s club, they realize that they cannot leave their demons in the past to destroy more lives in the future. It’s not enough just to make it out, you have to make sure no one else has to.
This follows closely in the bloody footsteps of Felker-Martin’s first book, Manhunt, a post-apocalyptic tale that finally addresses the question of how trans people get HRT during the apocalypse. Like Manhunt, and It, one of Cuckoo’s greatest strengths is its characters. They’re not perfect, no cookie-cutter protagonists here. They’re flawed and real and resilient, and they hurt the people they love, but ultimately, they step up to protect each other because no one else will. By the time I got to the end of the book they felt like family. Another thing I really appreciated about this group was the diversity of intersectional identities from within the queer umbrella and beyond represented within the seven. These identities are written with careful thought given to the unique experiences and struggles faced by each character.
Felker-Martin’s commentary is not subtle, but subtlety isn’t everything. She doesn’t pull her punches on the political messaging or the gnarly body horror that underscores it. Do be warned if you tend to get squeamish about gore or are just not in a place to read about this kind of stuff. But if you’re like me and find comfort in facing the horrors of the real world through the monsters in fiction and want to scream alongside this battle cry of a book this is one you won’t want to miss out on!