'Utterly horrifying and impossible to put downfor a dozen reasons, but most of all, for how plausible the whole thing feels. Mike Bockoven has made something at once merciless, terrifying, and curiously humane but you should probably not go there after dark.' Zack Handlen, the AV Club 'In clear, conversational prose, Fantasticland creates its world-and then carefully, horribly dismantles it. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost? This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh.

Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts? Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where “Fun is Guaranteed!” But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. A modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online.

Eloise takes a bawth