Absolutely not, put it down

Right. I am the exact target audience for this. Scout troop on an island, something horrible turns up, everybody is fifteen and stupid and hungry. I should have been all over it.

I finished it out of pure spite and now I need a shower and possibly a course of something. It isn't scary, it's just wet. There's a difference between dread and being made to look at a thing for a long time, and this book has one setting and that setting is "look at it again". The animal chapters, no. I'm not squeamish, I've read Barker perfectly happily, but the cruelty in those sections isn't in aid of anything. It's there because somebody could.

I tried to make a joke to Dec about a badge you don't want to earn and he didn't laugh, and to be fair to him neither did I, it was not a good joke. But that's about the level of fun I was having by that point in the evening.

Two would be unfair, because the pacing is genuinely good, the interview documents between chapters are a decent structure, and the last chapter with the one who gets off the island is the only part with any feeling in it at all. Four.

Took my copy to the charity shop and then felt a bit guilty, like I'd left something on a doorstep.