Cuckoo
In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids are abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp in the mountains. There they come face to face with something inhuman that speaks to them in their dreams and wants to wear their bodies. They survive, but they do not leave the same, and the campers who go home to their families have changed in ways no one can name. Sixteen years later, the scarred survivors have to return to stop the horror before it spreads further. Gretchen Felker-Martin uses body horror to attack the cruelty of conversion therapy and the forces that try to make queer people disappear. It is graphic, angry, and unflinching.
What you might want to know about Cuckoo
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Queer teens dumped at a remote conversion camp in 1995 face a monster that wants their bodies, and must finish what they started years later.
Yes. Roxane Gay chose it as the July 2024 pick for The Audacious Book Club.
Yes. It is intense body horror that deals directly with abuse, conversion therapy, and dehumanization, and is not for squeamish readers.
Cuckoo was written by Gretchen Felker-Martin, published in 2024 by Nightfire.
Cuckoo is 384 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Cuckoo takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Cuckoo is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
