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Playground

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About this listen

Once in a lifetime

Three low-income families have been given a handsome retainer to join Geraldine Borden for a day at her cliffside estate. All the parents must do to collect the rest of their money is allow their children to test out the revolutionary playground equipment Geraldine has been working on for decades. But there’s a reason the structures in the bowels of her gothic castle have taken so long to develop—they were never meant to see the light of day.

When a band of dysfunctional children is suddenly thrust into a diabolical realm of violence, they must grow up instantly to have a chance at survival. Will they find a way to put their differences aside, or be swallowed up by the insidious architecture all around them?

"With Playground, Aron Beauregard transcends himself, delivering a genuinely chilling, uncomfortable novel that will make even the most jaded horror fan squirm. A harrowing, relentless read that left me breathless." (Brian Keene)

Warning: This book contains graphic content. Listener discretion is advised.

©2022 Aron Beauregard (P)2023 Aron Beauregard Horror Suspense Thriller & Suspense Scary
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Well, I think my review title sums it up pretty accurately so if that sounds fun you'll probably enjoy it, you weirdo! It's obviously not for the faint of heart but it was also surprisingly compelling and emotional in addition to the gore. The book features very graphic violence, as well as a smidge of animal violence but the biggest WTF was some truly grotesque scenes with sex in (I can't on good conscience call them sex scenes) and sexual abuse that really took the disgusting cake. I can't say I enjoyed those scenes but I did enjoy all the rest of it because because I too, am a weirdo.

SAW ...but with kids!

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Playground is difficult to describe because of all that goes on in its story, I personally favour the character of Tanya, I believe in her whole family her character was the most reasonable, pairing nicely with CJ’s outward leadership role, she was a flawed character like the rest but with her it felt she took on the mantle convincingly.
While I compliment the characters of the children, rock felt quite frustrating as a character, I believe the dynamic between him and Geraldine was decently believable, one thing I did not understand how difficult he was to convince to turn against Geraldine (may her name be forgotten). I suppose it could be chalked up to the years of abuse as stated, however with such a clear advantage physically and number wise with all the parents there, I believe it would have made for an interesting story to see the parents along with rock go through hurdles to try and get to Geraldine and Fuchs, going through a maze that she had prepared in case Rock decided to rebel.

I think this would have made sense when accounting for his immense stature, furthermore, Geraldine openly states her disdain for him, but I digress.

The clearest strengths in this book for me are the avid and gruesome descriptions of gore and violence, I believe that in this aspect I’ve never quite been shocked by a book quite so much, while the actions of some of the characters do not quite make sense, (Bobby killing Sadie and Isaac after his father simply told him to once, despite the discouragement from the rest of the group) although most of this is worth it as it allows for some truly horrific scenes.
The scene that particularly stuck out to me the most was the death of Geraldine… which was almost as brutal for Rock as it was for her, I like the symbolism of him also getting harmed while taking her down, as if even in death she still find a way to harm him, not only this but to me this scene had the most shocking description of violence by far… and it is very clear the hatred that rock housed for her was all exploding in that instance.

The descriptions of the settings were very clear, I felt if closed my eyes I could almost see the slide that poor Sadie was forced to go down… this is of course aided by the cover of the book, however even with this, the way that the seesaw scene between Tanya and CJ was described I could imagine the blades and flames so clearly it was shocking.

Overall I would say this is a brilliantly disturbing and harrowing read, this could not have been a better introduction to splatter horror.

A first time splatter horror reader’s review of Playground by Aron Beauregard.

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If you are looking for a bloody and grotesque version of Lord of Flies than this is it.

Gruesome and great!

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It was weird listen,not gonna lie there was one bit where I had to skip a little bit as I was gagging lol but it was good. unusual,but good. definitely not for light hearted people 😄

Definitely something else

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I personally enjoyed this book but my partner couldn’t get beyond a couple of chapters because he was so grossed out.
Just what you’d expect from Splatter-punk, really.
It was written well, and the story was good, I do think there’s a couple of bits that could be a bit more concise. I’d definitely read this authors other books.

Don’t read if you’re easily triggered/upset/offended.

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