4.25 stars
Tell me you have religious trauma without telling me you have religious trauma Mr. Tingle. Wow! That packed a wallop! I wouldn't call this a horror, but it is absolutely a thriller and it's 100% traumatic if you've had to live through anything even close to what these kids have to live through. At first it felt like that one movie called Saved, when she was watching commercials for Camp Damascus, it felt a little campy and lighthearted. We'd had the flies but they were sort of easy to explain away (not really but if that happened to you, you'd want to believe anything to make it "Okay"), and some other weirdness (THE DOOR!), but still not sure what to think etc... Then it escalates and as Rose starts to see things, we start to see things. Although we should have already had our spidey senses screaming CULT, we don't always want to believe that, nor do we want to believe anyone can be that indoctrinated that they can't even fathom it. Thankfully, she gets there and honestly, I was impressed with how quickly she got there and flipped her devout switch. She still wouldn't swear (from someone what swears maybe too much, I thought it was funny), but you can't change everything at once, you have to gradually ease into the changes. I think facing the fact that your parents had you sent away to be reprogrammed so you aren't gay anymore (Jeez Louise it boils my blood that people to this day think that's a thing that can actually happen!!!) and then remembering you're a lesbian and you had/have a girlfriend (who is awesome by the way), is more than enough for one day. Anyway, this was great and I think we should be putting copies in all the Little Free Libraries we can before it gets banned (I'm sure it already is in Florida) because kids need to know that the very idea of conversion therapy is so ridiculous a horror/thriller book was written about it.