Publication Date: August 16, 2016

3.5-stars rounded up to 4: 😧😩Emotionally exhausted and confused. This book was a complete mind f♤ck! Let me get that right out of the way! This is my second Cutter book – the first I read was The Troop which I gave 5-stars and absolutely loved from start to finish. This one was harder for me to get into and stay interested. Some of the things I liked were the basic premise, the claustrophic feel was creepy as hell and the Trieste itself, how it was a character in the story – this reminded me of how The Overlook Hotel feels. Cutter is excellent at writing creepy ass stuff – there are multiple times in this where ‘monster’ type entities gave me the complete heebie-jeebies and that is friggen fantastic.

However, other aspects of this didn’t work as well for me personally. If you follow any of my reviews, blog, etc., you may recall that I have a really, really difficult time reading anything where animals are harmed/killed, etc. – and even though, in The Troop, there were a few passages I had to skim over rather than actually read due to animal content it was just sprinkled here and there. This one had quite a bit more – if you are sensitive at all about that just know it going in. I was so worried about one of the dogs in the story the whole time that it was hard for me to enjoy – just sitting there with my dog, reading with this incredible sense of foreboding – but I know that is a personal thing for me and may affect others completely differently. I hated Clayton – he was just a terrible, horrible human being I would rate right up there with Professor Umbridge as one of my most hated characters of all time. There was not one redeeming quality about him and if I were his brother, I would never have even bothered going to the Trieste for his pompous ass anyway…but that would have made a pretty short story. ‘Luke, come, Luke…’ ‘No.’ THE END

I rate my books on my personal enjoyment factor – 3 is liked, 4 is really liked. This one fell directly in the middle of that – 3.5 stars. I recently bought Little Heaven and do look forward to checking that one out as well! Have you read any books by Nick Cutter? If so, what was your favorite – I am definitely voting for The Troop so far!  Let me know in the comments or send me a message – I would love to hear your thoughts!