Jeremy Robert Johnson

“Unputdownable…Fans of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and Stranger Things will be especially thrilled.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A satisfyingly dark satire of, well, everything…Imagine Blake Crouch and Mira Grant re-writing Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers—fans of all three authors are part of the wide audience who will flock to this heart-pounding and deeply unsettling tale.” —Booklist Stranger Things meets World War Z in this heart-racing conspiracy thriller as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong. Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of western Oregon, the kind of town you escape to for a vacation. When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

The Loop

Lauren Sullivan

Content warnings: (view spoiler)[parental neglect (in the past, described on page), alcoholism (in the past), racism, drug use, deadly car accident causing parents’ death (in the past, described), car accident (on-page), bullying, extremely graphic violence, sexual assault (off-page but described), body horror (hide spoiler)]

It’s almost October, which means it’s time for me to binge horror books and get completely scared out of my mind. This was a great first book for that, extremely gory and deliciously horrifying. I’m just going to stop and reiterate that you should definitely check the content warnings on this one as it is very violent and occasionally crude – like, someone getting beaten with a wrench is the low end of the scale for this book. If that’s something you can deal with, then buckle up, you’re in for a terrifying ride.

This book happens over the course of a few days – mainly over one night – in the idyllic Pacific Northwest town of Turner Falls. Lucy, who’s Latina, and Bucket, who’s Pakistani, are the only minority kids in the school. They’re the outcast kids that all the rich white kids, whose parents work at the big biotech company, look down on and bully. It’s the sort of place where nothing much happens – at least until a brutal attack during school leaves the town reeling. Shaken but smothered by her parents’ concern, Lucy decides to go to an end of the school year party at the local teen hangout in the caves along with Bucket and Brewer, a boy from the wrong side of town who has a crush on her. When the teens inexplicably start attacking each other, suddenly Lucy, Bucket and Brewer are on the run, hiding from the murderous kids and banding up with other survivors.

“The moment each new threat arrived, there was a rush of blood through her body, and her muscles felt strong and tight again, and she wanted nothing so much as to crush whatever had tried to harm her. She felt it like fate, magnetic, pulling her toward conflict.
This has always been inside of me, but I never let it out.
I was a ghost instead. For too long.”

Lucy’s a strong and fascinating protagonist. Beyond the plot and everything else, Lucy’s character is really what sold me on this book. Even prior to the events of the book, Lucy’s been through a lot – she was adopted from Peru and had a traumatic childhood. Though her adoptive parents love her and have tried to do their best for her, she still feels like she’s had to suppress her feelings and basically become a ghost, drifting through her life and trying to avoid attracting attention from the kids who bully her. What she doesn’t know, and what she realizes over the course of the book, is just how strong she is. Her friends Bucket and Brewer were also well drawn, but let’s be honest, the reason I really liked them was how amazing they were at supporting Lucy.

“Acknowledging what she might be losing could crush her, and thinking about what she’d done—about how right it had felt to destroy, and how good it had felt to finally have a way to exert control—might paralyze her. But death was surely headed her way, and life, whatever that meant now, could only happen somewhere far from here.
The present became everything, and action overrode thought, and that was how it had to be.”

The book starts slowly as we’re introduced to Lucy and her life in Turner Falls, but once the action starts it hits hard and doesn’t stop. The majority of the book occurs over the course of the night and day after the party, and it’s all tightly plotted. While at times I felt like the author was blatantly shoving the book’s themes into my face, I deeply enjoyed them, so it didn’t detract much from my reading experience. There’s the surface ones: the hubris of a biotech company who cares more about greed than teenager’s lives, and the Lord of the Flies mentality of high school, with the majority of kids just following along with the biggest bully. But my favorite theme was that of personal agency and how a person responds to trauma – about choosing to be either a victim or a survivor. It’s the decision to stop running and take circumstances into her own hands that made me love Lucy so much.

“They pitched it as innocuous. Beneficial, even. There was going to be a lockdown feature.”
“Why?”
“To stop violence before it even happened.”
“Yeah, well . . . nailed it,” said Judah.

Overall, if you can stomach the extreme violence, this is a highly rewarding and tightly plotted horror thriller. I will definitely be looking up the author's other books!

I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: The Loop

Author: Jeremy Robert Johnson

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 2/5

Recommended For...: sci-fi fans, thriller/mystery lovers

Publication Date: September 29, 2020

Genre: Sci-Fi

Recommended Age: can’t recommend, dnf-ed

Publisher: Saga Press

Pages: 320

Synopsis: Stranger Things meets World War Z in this heart-racing conspiracy thriller as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong.

Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of western Oregon, the kind of town you escape to for a vacation. When an inexplicable outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence as the teenaged children of several executives from the local biotech firm become ill and aggressively murderous. Suddenly the town is on edge, and Lucy and her friends must do everything it takes just to fight through the night.

Review: I had to DNF at 20%. The book is really slow and I just couldn't get into it as much as I wanted to.

Verdict: Not for me but maybe for you!

Kristin Hamill

The Loop by Jeremy Robert Jordan is a wild ride in the best way possible. Set in a small town in Oregon, we follow our main character, Lucy, through a night of terror as some of the teens in the town suddenly become murderous. She and a few others fight to survive and put an end to the sudden outbreak of violence.

This book is full of very graphic, gory scenes that rival any that I have read or watched recently and kept me on my toes, wondering if the crew would survive the night. I really enjoyed getting a glimpse of Lucy’s internal thoughts through all of the events. It made everything seem more realistic and gripping.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jeremy Robert Jordan and Gallery/Saga Press for the opportunity to review an e-arc of this book.

Morgen Clarke

Jayme Bosio

The year’s most brutal, cinematic thrill ride is also one of its most critically acclaimed novels. Dazed and Confused meets 28 Days Later in this “wickedly entertaining,” (Kirkus Reviews) “volcano of a book” (Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds) as a lonely young woman teams up with a group of fellow outcasts to survive the night in a town overcome by a science experiment gone wrong. A Best Book of the Month for Den of Geek, Omnivoracious, Mystery & Suspense, and Tor. A Goodreads’ 2020 Readers Choice Nominee for Best Horror, and one of the Best Books of 2020 for The Lineup, Booked, and Unsettling Reads. Turner Falls is a small tourist town nestled in the hills of central Oregon. When a terrifying outbreak rapidly develops, this idyllic town becomes the epicenter of an epidemic of violence. The Loop is a “wild and wonderfully scary novel” (Richard Chizmar, author of Gwendy’s Magic Feather) that offers a “hilarious and horrifying” (Brian Keene, author of The Rising) look at what one team of misfits can accomplish as they fight to live through the night. “[A] harrowing thrill ride of the first order and an uncompromising page-turner, easily securing its spot as one of the best novels of 2020.” —Rue Morgue (featured “Dante’s Pick” Review) “Like the best of Crichton or Bentley, it is a great beach read, but it is infused with the neon blood of a brave new writer... [A] kind of literary roller coaster. It will take you to thrilling highs and terrifying lows…” —Los Angeles Review of Books “The Loop is the gore-soaked, anxiety-inducing, diabolically funny Richard Linklater/David Cronenberg mashup you never knew you wanted but can’t—or at least shouldn’t—live without.” —The Big Thrill “Unputdownable...Fans of The Twilight Zone, The X-Files, and Stranger Things will be especially thrilled.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A satisfyingly dark satire of, well, everything...[a] heart-pounding and deeply unsettling tale.” —Booklist “The Loop is a remarkably propulsive novel, cinematic in the best way, with perfectly tuned tension and excellent character choices…a headlong, straightforward pleasure.” —Locus “The Loop is the Cronenberg film we never got.” —Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters and Wounds