This book is camp. Imagine 8 legged freaks meets your favourite 80s cult horror. If you go into this book expecting to have fun and for it to be fast paced you’re going to have a good time. If you go in expecting deep character development and underlying themes you probably won’t. Anyways it’s a short book worth a bit of your time if you’re into amusement park horror as well.

This was a fun horror filled creature feature for the win this summer. Reminiscent of some '80s horror, this was also like if Zombieland (or even Joyland, recently read that one too) meets Goosebumps the movie/ Eight Legged Freaks/ Stranger Things.

Danny and his girlfriend are 17 and working at The Lone Star Amusement Park for the summer. Stacy recently announced that's she pregnant and after a shameful suggestion from Danny she stormed off and isn't speaking to him. When an explosion from a nearby construction site unearths a giant hole with a swarm of massive creatures, the amusement becomes under attack and Danny has to fight his way off of Shock Wave, the roller coaster and through the park with a rag tag group of co workers and guests back to Stacy.

This was mostly just gory fun! Giant creatures of all kinds causing absolute chaos and destruction to the rides and people. Just a gory good time. I was texting my husband when I was reading it and he thought the descriptive writing was pretty "gnarly" too. The actions scenes are vivid and the creatures were monstrous. It ends like we've seen other creature features end so that was pretty fitting and it leaves an opening for a possible sequel. Totally worth it if you're looking for a horror story that's just creature feature fun with a little plot.

I love a good creature feature, and this one certainly fit the bill. There was no lacking of creatures in fact.

We start off at the Lone Star Amusement Park. Our boy Danny, who works at the amusement park as the foreman of the Shock Wave coaster, recently found out he's going to be a father. He's still pondering what this means for his future when an explosion at a nearby construction site rips open a hell-mouth....or something. Because lots of...things...come pouring out of the new fissure in the earth and are headed right for the park!

Now poor Danny is torn between keeping his riders safe, and going into the park to find his girlfriend, Stacy, who works on another ride.

The park is dark and full of monsters. Some can fly, some are reptilian, some are unseen aside from monstrous tentacles (which brings to mind The Mist which is one of my favorite novella's).

However, a large number of the creatures seem to be arachnid in nature. Through much of the book whenever a creature was encountered I couldn't help but play the sound effects of the movie Eight Legged Freaks in my head. It added a little lightheartedness to the massive amount of entrails this book contained.

The only downside to this read was that I didn't feel any real attachment to the characters. There were a few flashbacks to make us feel more for Danny and Stacy and for us to hope for a safe reunification of the couple, but they fell flat for me. While I absolutely loved every abomination filled minute, I could have cared less if Danny found Stacy in on piece or not. I didn't mourn any of the fallen comrades either.

If I were someone who gave deeper meaning and underlying themes to what I read then I'd say the monsters poor Danny faces on his way to find Stacy was a metaphor for the terror of upcoming fatherhood. But I'm not one of those people. I take my cave mutants and human evisceration at face value.

If you are also a fan of creepy crawly (and sometimes flappy) creatures from the depth of the earth, and bountiful intestine filled mutilations, or if you just want to know if Danny an Stacy are safely reunited or if "Big Mamma" manages to eviscerate the whole lot of them, then this book is for you!

The book was so good, the creatures in it were unique and gross and terrifying and the fact that literally no-one of any age was safe was *chef's kiss* because too many times there seems to be a blanket safety net on people that you *know* are going to survive, but not here, and that reveal was a bit like 'oh..oh they did that' (hint: the green shoe).
This is why I avoid theme parks (not because I'm a wuss when it comes to rides) but because I don't want to take the risk of getting trapped in one and eaten by some large insect or tentacle creature, just in case, you never know.