I unintentionally binged through the entire book in one day. I can't say why Igor did it, but for me, it was because the book hooked me from the first chapter and I found it so sunspensful, it was hard to put it down. The other reason is that it was Thursday before Liburnicon weekend (local scifi convention) and I had both Petra and another friend coming over early on Friday and I wanted to finish the big 1000 piece puzzle whose fragment you can see in the background of this image. Turns out, the amount of time that I was left on the puzzle was just the right amount for the audiobook length, so I binged through Camp Damascus and finished the puzzle!

Anyway, this book is scary and uncomfortable, but not because of the demons or the supernatural. It's about the horrors of conversion therapy. It depicts how religious institutions can use faith to wield it as a tool of oppression, choosing which behaviors are considered normal and which are abnormal and as such, need to be "fixed". We go straight (hah!) to the head of the young, autistic, religious woman who lives in an insular small town religious community and who is starting to notice some strange things. When the strangeness turns deadly, she starts investigating her community and learns some truly disturbing things that are happening. I was anxiously reading her investigation, knowing where the plot was going, and dreading the answers to the mystery. Also, this book hits way too close. Without going into details, some of the things that I read here were very familiar to my own experiences, which made the horrors illustrated here all the more personal. I literally felt nauseous at some scenes with her family.

But, there's also humor that lightens up the plot, the main character was so delightful, Mara Wilson's audio narration was great and engaging, and the discussion about faith, religion and queerness was poignant. The ending was also very cathartic. All in all, great book, great read, absolutely recommend it.