QUICK TAKE: I love a good zombie novel, but I found myself a little bored and letdown by this one. Save for a truly terrifying and claustrophobic scene in the first 50 pages, I quickly found myself losing interest (and if I'm being honest, I was a bit confused with what was happening). ultimately not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review. Honestly? I’m not sure how to feel about this story. It’s still pretty fresh and raw. I love creepy, scary stories but never actually get scared. This one triggered a full on panic attack, though, and I mean that in the best way. Lucy is a great main character, deeply flawed but still someone you want to root for. The town she lives in has been invaded by its own teenagers and she doesn’t know who to trust or how to make it stop. But she is determined to fight back...and she does.

This started out so well, intriguing characters and weird incidents that peaked my curiosity and imagination--but then suddenly it turns into an all out crazy carnage fest, reminding me a lot of the zombie novels that were all the rage ten years ago. It got so violent and frenetic and it just kept on coming, so that I lost a sense of characters and story and was just trying to keep up. I kinda feel like a slower build up to the craziness might have kept me engaged. I think this would work better as a movie than a book.

I really liked this book and can't wait to get a physical copy for my collection. I was hooked from page 1.

"The Loop" was a weird read for me- as a teenager, I probably would have loved the teen sex banter, the over-the-top language, and imagery of death and murder. As an adult, it is difficult to read. As a parent, I don't even want to recommend it to the teenage audience at all.

Much of the story revolves around the antagonists taking pleasure in violence and gore. There are exploding body parts, people being cut apart, eyes being gouged out-- all in (almost amazing) detail. The antagonists loved causing pain and creating bloodshed as part of the story-- part of me felt like you had to relate to those characters to enjoy some of the gruesome acts that were described.

It was an "okay" book for me- I read it quickly- I wanted to know how it would end and I also wanted to put the book behind me. The ending was mostly satisfying. I felt there was a loose end-- the story starts off with a night radio show and I would have liked to "hear" more of that!

Thank you Netgalley and Gallery books for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Whew, it sure was a bloody ride!

Absolutely great read for the fall and spooky enough for Halloween! Totally original twist on this story that I didn’t expect but did really enjoy.

Thanks NetGalley for the review copy!

I liked this book immediately from page one and knew I had a new author to get to know. The book was nonstop action and tension which is just the way I like them. Definitely not for the squeamish. I’m looking forward to more books from this author.

***Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***
Gave me real Stranger Things vibes and I loved it.

Turner Falls, Oregon, is a small town with a big problem. A local biotech company's experiments seem to have gone terribly wrong, but when local misfit teens start to notice, who is going to believe them. Y'all, The Loop was a bloody, gritty, gruesome, good time!

Our main protagonist, Lucy, was so well-imagined. I loved reading from her perspective. Smart, witty, and slightly jaded, she found a strength within herself she didn't even realize was there. Along with her two friends, Brewer and Bucket, Lucy and the boys come face-to-face with the bioengineering gone wrong.

It has gone very wrong indeed. Make no mistake, Johnson does not shy away from gore and general stomach-churning details. We stan. There is also a conspiracy podcast element which I absolutely adored. It was an exceptional device for tying in biting social commentary. The podcast host was entirely realistic and I thought he was an excellent addition to the cast of characters. I can't imagine the story without him.

The comparison to Stranger Things is understandable, although these kids seem much more mature than the original pack from ST. I mean, obviously there is a big age difference. However, the overall vibe, is there. If you are looking for a fast-paced, smart, evil corporation horror thriller...wait, is that a thing?

Yes. It is now and I want more of it. I had a ton of fun with this. I am excited to read more from this author. I think he made really great choices with how this story unfolded. It was humorous and horrifying, which are two things that go so well together. Like peanut butter and chocolate. Do not disagree with that.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Gallery Books, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. I appreciate it so much and urge any horror lover to give it a shot.

With the comparison of Stranger Things meets World War Z, I didn't really know what to expect as I've only seen of those. The book was okay. I would say it was enjoyable, but not for everyone.

After witnessing a fellow student die a mysterious death in the middle of class, Lucy decides to go to a party in some caves hosted by the local rich kids. Soon after, she finds herself facing her town's apocalypse with a band of misfits while trying to process what exactly is happening and why.

The Loop is action-packed, well-written, and, as long as you have a sick and twisted sense of humor, absolutely hilarious. I loved Lucy and the fact that while she is a total badass, she also has emotions.

I'm not sure I am the ideal reader for "The Loop". I think this would appeal most to slightly older readers on the YA spectrum. Though the main characters are still in high school, the language, drug use, sexual references and gore would make me hesitate to recommend it to most high school readers.

The book has a lot of action, but I think it would have been faster-paced and more engaging if it had been written from more than one perspective (Lucy's). Because we only saw things from her POV, there were some long sections of information dumping from other characters (like the doctor).

I am all about a classic horror book, and I don't mind some blood and gore when reading. But this book really had a LOT of very detailed descriptions of horrifying things that happened to various minor and not so minor characters. I think a little could have been left to the reader's imagination.

I was pretty disappointed in the ending. I wasn't exactly expecting a "happily ever after", but I wasn't expecting THAT ending either.

All in all, an ok read but not really for me.

My Thoughts
I enjoy reading horror during this time of year, so I started reading this book just before Halloween thinking it would fit the bill nicely for a great scare! It took me 13 days to get through this book! I typically read one book every two days, so almost 2 weeks to finish a book feels like a lifetime to me. I’m sorry to say that I had to work too hard to stay interested. Here are my pros and cons for The Loop:

Pros

1. If you can make it to the 70% mark in the book (approximately), you will be rewarded with some actual thriller/horror elements. Until then, the book is pretty mediocre in my opinion (see Con #1).
2. The pacing was chaotic and stressful. I am adding this as a Pro because I think that the crazy pacing made the story feel more dire.
3. Great concept. Foundationally, the story was solid.
4. Had a strong science fiction element that I liked.
5. The very ending was just okay for me, but the action leading up to it (as I mentioned above) was exhilarating, sad, and scary.

Cons

1. This book is unbelievably verbose. Everything is described and dwelled upon to the point of exhaustion – at least for me. I really felt like I was reading the same things over and over and over. I was ready to DNF at about 40% because I didn’t feel like the story was going anywhere.
2. There was some vulgar language and tasteless references in the book that were wholly unnecessary. Some of the dialogue between the teens in the book was bizarre and unbelievable.
3. It was excessively violent. One character was actually enjoying her violent actions a little too much. Violence seemed to be glorified in the story.
4. A completely pointless and disgusting scene of animal violence was included in the story. I almost stopped reading at that point.
5. I didn’t connect with a single character.

Summary
This book is clearly not for me, but it is a Goodreads Choice Horror 2020 nominee so I know there are people who have loved it. I just couldn’t get into it. When it takes me 2 weeks to finish a 320 page book, that immediately tells me that I’m not invested and not interested. The concept was fascinating and the structure of the book solid, but too many elements of the story were over-the-top, excessively violent, and sometimes quite vulgar. It was actually difficult to read at times. I wish there had been less focus on shock value and more on story or character development.

All that said, I didn’t completely dislike the book and the ending was good enough for me to bump my rating to 3 stars. However, I’m not sure I’d recommend this to anyone unless they were serious sci-fi/horror fans who can tolerate graphic violence and ignore gratuitous animal abuse.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books/Saga Press for a free eARC of this book, which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This will be a satisfying read for those seeking a lot of gore. If Alien & 28 Days Later had a baby, this book would be it. Definitely grabs the reader from the start, and the pace never slows.

This started out strong but devolved into a bloody, violent mess with chases, killings and weird science all rolled into a story with a disappointing ending.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

I wanted to like this book - the description was intriguing and I DO love a good horror book. But it wore me out- so much graphic gore, and the adolescent sexual innuendo almost did me in.

The book started out well. And I must admit I liked the primary characters, Lucy, Bucket and Brewer. But in the end the graphic violence overwhelmed the story. It is marketed as a young adult book, but I would not recommend it for any but an older teen.

My thanks to Net Galley for an ARC of this book.

Turner Falls is just a small town in Oregon where nothing exciting every happens. And then teenagers in town start violently killing and spewing black goo.
Lucy and her friends are trying to stay alive, to not be infected with whatever this thing is that is controlling the town. She will have to kill her classmates to kill the things, to break the loop.

Holy crap! The Loop is a sick and twisted, terrifying book of unimaginable gore! If the third season of Stranger Things had a baby with The Walking Dead, the end result would be this book. Everything you need in a horrifying pod people parasite, government conspiracy, mind controlling, tin foil hat wearing horror novel.
Somehow, hidden underneath all the blood and guts of this book, I found humor. lol. Being inside the teenage mind again was refreshing. The paragraph about the pink dolphins in Peru had to be the funniest thing I have read in a while. I love witty and sick humor, and found it completely appropriate for this book.
I will never look at an octopus the same again. This book not only shortened the length of my nails from biting with panic, it gave me day time nightmares while I was awake. I may never recover from this one.. Good job!

A fresh new twist on a classic trope! I really enjoyed this one. A little slow to start, but quickly picked up the pace and held it throughout. I loved that the answers to the mystery were hinted at but not revealed too soon. The characters were well-written and relatable. A scenario well outside the norm, but written in a manner so convincing that it felt incredibly realistic.

When a scientific experiment goes horribly wrong, a small town is ground zero for mayhem and death. Teenage Lucy Hamilton, an outsider in her snobbish school, and a few of her friends are fortunate enough to escape the original infestation and ensuing violence, but as situations worsen, their goal changes from escaping to trying to save the rest of the world. This is a very fast moving and cinematic book--a scare a minute predicts a story made for the big screen.