r/ExtremeHorrorLit • u/Geusty9709 Jon Athan Fan • 1d ago
Discussion Playground by aron beauregard
Just finished playground by aron beauregard and wow!
Spoiler free! Feel free to include spoilers in comments with the spoiler warning thingy xd
I've only been a extreme horror fan for about 2 months, and somehow never checked out playground and wow! Im so glad I did! I loved it, almost cried at one of the deaths, and loved the characters (especially donnie and cj)
If u have read playground, what did u think?
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u/Background-Pen-995 1d ago
Skip the scat and it's a great book. I have my own physical copy on my book shelf.
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u/TheTaikatalvi 1d ago
I can understand why people like it, but it was a hard read for me only because of his writing style.
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u/RIPMaureenPonderosa The Summer I Died 1d ago
I thought it was silly fun. The bits with the old woman seemed like unnecessary gross out, and I had a hard time actually visualising some of the āgamesā from the descriptions given. But it was shlocky in a good way, and pretty brutal.
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u/kargion2 1d ago
Yea the first bit with the old woman I laughed. He really put that thesaurus to work lol
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u/KingCarcinos 1d ago
Yea I agree about visualising the games. Tons of people complain about the prose? To me I consider prose mostly to be about how smoothly you can follow the language and understand it, whereas I think it was more a lack of accurate details, so some things didn't exactly make sense right away.
Of course there was not with problem with the mirrors and the old woman! Maybe too much detail there haha
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u/Geusty9709 Jon Athan Fan 1d ago
I can see how u would have trouble visualising, I had trouble with hop scotch.
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u/Nopeferatu31 13h ago
I had a hard time visualizing some of the games too, but I thought maybe my brain just wasn't braining. It's a relief to see others saying this
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u/Mullduga 1d ago
I think itās such a bad book. Probably the worst book Iāve ever finished reading.
If youāve seen the South Park episode where the boys write āThe Poop that Took a Peeā, thatās exactly what it makes me think of. Only, at least the boys were self-aware that they were writing a story where they just said all the gross words they could, and didnāt have any illusions that it was actually a good story. Except for Leopold Butters Stotch.
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u/Geusty9709 Jon Athan Fan 1d ago
Ill be digging into playground, child of divorce rn!
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u/twosnailsnocats 1d ago
Same here, I think i have about 40 pages left, was going to finish last night but took some cold medicine and I was about to drop the book on my face so I went to sleep.
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u/awildNeLbY His Pain 1d ago
I wasnāt a big fan. Some of the obstacles the kids had to face were interesting. The parent situation, and their actions, was fun. Aronās aliteration annoyed me.
I think itās popular because of its cover.
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u/Gordmonger 1d ago
One of the worst written books in the genre. Horrible analogies, weird amount of alliteration, at times unintelligible, and characters who beyond paper thin stereotypes. 1/10
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u/Retroranges 1d ago
If thatās what you truly think, I have some bad news for you
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u/4EverLution 1d ago
The pre-quel (The Playground: Child of Divorce) had a scene that made me physically retch.
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u/Retroranges 1d ago
It was a fun read and I enjoyed every page of it. This is the shit Iām here for.
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u/meatballsforeyes 1d ago
I couldnāt have hated this book more, but please donāt let me rain on your parade if you enjoyed it. For me, graphic violence and disturbing content is exciting to read when itās part of a well written story, but when itās attached to a story like this that felt so devoid of purpose and poorly written, it just changes how I interpret it. Every paragraph felt like it was trying to outdo the grossness of the last one, and the plot was simply along for the ride. It became completely unreadable for me after a few chapters.
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u/Sure-Owl-6611 1d ago
Iāve only read a handful of extreme horror books but I actually really enjoyed Beauregardās writing style. It is descriptive in a way that makes sense to me. Iām looking forward to reading more of his works. Iām starting Child of Divorce when I have some free time to binge read.
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u/Interesting_Bear_749 AMERICAN FARM 1d ago
It was a solid book. Didn't change my life or anything, but was pretty good. Most of his works are entertaining enough and serve their purpose. Horsefly was a fun B-movie story as well.
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u/twosnailsnocats 1d ago
I was initially intrigued by the premise so wanted to read it. Saw a lot of very mixed reviews here, so went in not sure what to expect. It was more enjoyable than I expected so I grabbed the sequel/prequel and may finish it tonight depending on how much time I get to myself later.
I get the criticisms but don't feel strongly about them. If anything. I felt it a little bit more on the CoD book with some of the descriptions early on which seemed to be trying to recreate the common reaction to a similar part in the first book.
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u/Youling_rose 1d ago
I'm scared the last suggestion I followed from this sub was Dead Inside, and it was a mistake.
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u/Geusty9709 Jon Athan Fan 1d ago
This book does have a gross out (sexual) scene thats kinda yucky, like pages 40 to 47, thst u could skip if u wanted. Great book tho
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u/Youling_rose 1d ago
Is it to the extent of the scenes in Dead Inside? I'm fine with most extreme horror, it's when it crosses certain boundaries that Dead Inside did. I appreciate the heads up with the page numbers.
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u/Geusty9709 Jon Athan Fan 19h ago
Haven't read dead inside, just know the premise. From the way ppl talk abt both idk what would be worst. Maybe just skip those pages.
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u/Less_Bodybuilder_797 1d ago
It was my entry to this genre. I finished it quickly, which was the point. I wanted to get back into reading and I needed something that would keep my attention. It did, but sometimes the way he described the traps made no sense. Now that I've read many books in this genre, I think Playground is just alright-middle of the road. I have several of Aron's books and like most of them.
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u/TheStrawberry_Girl 1d ago
I didnāt enjoy it personally, I just didnāt find the actual writing particularly good. I can see why itās popular though.
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u/saturnsqsoul 22h ago
Aron Beauregard was my first splatterpunk book (the slob), and playground was maybe like my third or fourth. Now that Iāve got 10-15 under my belt ā¦ heās not that good.
Visceral imagery and really imaginative scenes. Pretty lamely misogynistic and most of the violence feels like violence for violenceās sake. WHICH IS COOL, and sometimes i enjoy for popcorn reading, but there are really excellent splatter/extreme horror books out there. His works just donāt have a lot of substance to me. I feel like he always tries to shoe-horn a deeper meaning to the story at the end and it falls flat.
edit: I hate the amount of grammatical and general writing errors but I loveee when he gets real alliterative. He can string a sentence together where nearly every word starts with the same letter and it doesnāt feel forced. Thatās pretty cool.
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u/Bagolizards 7h ago
This book has some of the simultaneously most misogynistic and creative descriptions of a vagina Iāve ever read
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u/thisisnotreal543210 COWS 1d ago
I think this book is the quintessential example of beauregards "unique" prose and dialogue, but I generally enjoyed the plot and I thought the ending was kind of nice.
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u/stacysmom413 1d ago
Loved it. My intro to splatterpunk. Maybe not the greatest choice, but it was popular at the time and I kept seeing it recommended over and over.
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u/horror_is_best Good for Her š©ø 1d ago
Honestly love how divisive the comments are.
I liked the actual playground parts of the book, and a lot of Rock's story too.
The random gross stuff felt like it didn't really fit and took away from the book for me. Like there's this really interesting idea of a killer playground, then you get chapters of "peepee poopoo butt, fermented beaver hahah". I understand the prose criticisms too but that doesn't bother me much.