Book Review: "Playground" by Aron Beauregard

I normally feel myself wading through films and films before I get to a good horror film. Unfortunately, this also applies to books. I have to read lots and lots of terrible horror novels to get to the good ones. This is one of those bad ones I have to wade through. On the cover of the book, we are advertised a terrifying novel that will make even the 'most jaded' horror fan squirm. As someone who thinks that they are maybe not the most jaded, but somewhere in the ballpark, I can honestly say I neither was squirming nor was I very impressed.

With the dynamics of the villain and their slave reminding me of Kronk and Yzma from The Emperor's New Groove and the Lord of the Flies inspired storyline, you're probably just better off consuming both pieces of media/literature I have just stated rather than reading this nonsense. It is yet another cry for help from a man who thinks he is the next Stephen King because he wrote a novel with lots of gore. That is not how it's done and Stephen King would like you to sit back down.

Playground is about a woman called Geraldine who, for reasons explained in the book that nobody cares about, builds a death-trap playground and lures in unsuspecting parents, giving them money for their children to test out an 'ultra-modern' playzone in which the death-trap is disguised. If that wasn't predictable enough for you then get this: children die horrifically on the way whilst the parents have to watch from a spy room straight out of The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse, if the classic German movie was badly made.

Following this predictable literary nightmare, we have the one-weird-kid-nobody-knows trope who will only show his true colours when absolutely required. We have character parallels between these kids and the kids from Lord of the Flies in a way that makes me feel sick in my throat. Eric and Sadie are both definitely the same character and we have Ralph and C.J who are also pretty similar. The Golding Estate should do something about this clear copyright infringement - I mean, at least make it good and readable or, lay off the classics.

As we move through the book we get the slave finally gaining some sort of conscience because that *never* happens in survival novels. I mean, the slave gaining a conscience is one thing but how many times have you seen the main villain leave the slave alone in the room where the parents sit with the equipment they require to communicate with their children through the screen? That just seems like either terrible planning or terrible writing. Apart from this, the character of Fuchs serves no purpose except for being suggestively the guy the Nazis found too extreme.

Once we get over how bad the storyline is, we have to look at the sheer lack of atmosphere in the writing. There is nothing to ease us into the fright and so whenever something scary is going on, it neither feels tense nor does it give you that haunting feeling, nor does it make your heart race in any way whatsoever. It just feels bland and just like the rest of the novel. With every single chapter ending on some sort of cliffhanger, you do wonder how this author ever got published at all with such awful writing tropes involved let alone the lack of atmosphere.

It might be advertised as a horror novel but this is simply a gore-fest with underdeveloped characters, bad writing, no atmosphere and a heavily predictable storyline. For not a moment did I find myself looking over my shoulder nor was I waiting to see what happened next at the edge of my bed. Instead, I found myself waiting for the book to end and, because of its length in chapters being so short, the pace never changed and it ended pretty quickly. The ending serving little purpose itself.

The book itself had little saving grace and so, for Halloween if you want a scary read, I would avoid this one because all it seems to be is a whole lot of gore without any real scare. It works you up for a whole lot of nothing.