I Will Survive You: Another Look at Conversion Camps from Hell, with Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Content Warnings for this novel include abuse via religion, homophobia, transphobia, general abuse of queer kids, murder, gore

These are not the eggs you are looking for. 

The year is 1995. OJ Simpson has been set free. “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio and TLC’s “Waterfalls” have taken over the music charts. Bill Clinton is president. Seinfeld is one of the most popular television shows. But, underneath all of this, the queer community still suffers from horrible discrimination. Conversion camps still exist, operating with impunity and terrifying teens and children into burying their true selves as deep as possible. Most of these camps use terror tactics, praying, and bullying… but none of them have found the solution that Camp Resolution has. A group of seven unrelated teenagers are sent there. Their parents want them to change, but they have no idea what they are really sending their kids into. 

Even as horrible as the circumstances are, I marveled at the diverse cast of characters and backgrounds that Felker-Martin gave us. Shelby is trapped in a body that isn’t her own, but she doesn’t fit that glamorous model view of a trans woman. She is overweight, a person of color, running from a home that doesn’t accept her. Another character is adopted, with their parents being two affluent lesbians (one of whom would rather her child be sent to a horrific camp than be transgender). One character’s grandfather is her most supportive guardian, while her parents are the ones who can’t stand who she is. 

At Camp Resolution, even amongst the outcasts, there are queer people who are bullies to anyone who isn’t in their small clique, despite the fact that they, too, are at risk for the horrors that lie at the camp. This part reminds me of those in the queer community who have decided that transgender people should not be included in queer spaces, should be the exception to the protections that others enjoy. The problem is that they, too, are standing at the edge of a cliff with a long drop. There is no need to try and push others over it, because all that will happen is that we all go down together. 

The final chapters of Cuckoo, when they all come together again as adults to hopefully finish off the monstrous camp that haunted their teenage years, do not necessarily meet with a happy ending. What they find, those that survive, is an ending where they survive. It’s almost a bleak outlook, but when you think about it, surviving is the only thing that some queer people can do. It’s reality, with a filter of monstrosity over it that does nothing more than highlight the horrors that are already there. 

The point of this isn’t that there is a monster. The monsters are really the other people: the parents, the camp owners, the religious leaders, and the culture of fear around anyone who is different that allows for these kinds of spaces to exist. I know I have written about this before, when reviewing Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle (which you can check out here). Even a year later, things haven’t necessarily changed. Cuckoo is just another look at who the real monsters are - the people who advocate for the extinction of others (by death or by legislation or by religious torment) simply because they can’t understand how someone would be uncomfortable in their own body or that it is possible to love anyone regardless of their or your gender. 

No matter what, though, we will survive their hate. We will survive their legislation. We always have, even if it has been difficult or deadly to do so. If it ever feels like it is too much, there is always help out there. 

Remember, my loves, that when the final chapter is read and the light is snuffed out, I shall be here in the darkness, to protect you and to offer you a new book suggestion, should you need it.