Review: “Full Brutal” by Kristopher Triana

“Full Brutal” by Kristopher Triana is a good splatterpunk book if you’re looking for one with an insane female protagonist who will twist your thoughts of reality and madness. I enjoyed this wild ride despite the few flaws I found while reading.

Before I begin my review, there are a ton of trigger warnings here. They are:

– Pedophilia
– Underage sex
– Cannibalism
– Animal violence and torture
– Rape
– Suicide
– Homophobic slurs
– School shootings
– Drugs
– Date rape drugs
– Abortion
– Violence against women
– Violence against fetuses
– Violence against children
– Necrophilia

If any of these trigger you, please do not read this book. Moving along, I loved the references Triana dropped here from Hot Topic, The Misfits, Cujo, and the metal band Ghost. Seeing him mention one of my favorite bands since I'm a metalhead was awesome.

I enjoyed the high school setting and, of course, the incredible protagonist, Kim. My goodness, she is insane, psychotic, sinister, and so much more. Her character development was fun to read, especially seeing her descent into madness blur the lines of reality and some truly disturbing moments.

The horror here is excellent. I enjoyed how Triana dialed up the gore, violence, bloodshed, and serial-killer-inspired moments. That was all great, and combining that with Kim's over-the-top shenanigans made this a good splatterpunk read. She also had some hilarious dark-humor lines that made me laugh out loud, especially the one-liners after all the deranged sexual scenes.

Now, for the few flaws I found, some parts dragged on for me. The momentum started to fizzle out around the 50% mark. “Full Brutal” became way too story-intensive and not enough crazier splatterpunk. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled with the many splatterpunk books I’ve read before this and expected things to get crazier and more intense as you read, but that didn’t happen here for me. It finally started to pick up from the 70% mark on, especially the final 10% straight to the end.

I also found it hard to believe that a 16-year-old female would use the phrase “inside my sex” or “my sex” in thoughts and conversations referring to her lady parts. That distracted me since it’s mentioned everywhere. I remember during my high school and college days, I had never heard a woman call her “situation” that, you know?

Another thing I didn’t like was the addition of stories of real-life murderers, serial killers, etc., which felt unnecessary. It messed up the overall pacing of the story and the extreme horror parts, so I’m not sure why it even needed to be included in a book like this. It felt like fluff. Omitting all that would have made for a better read.

Aside from that, I did enjoy the gory slasher scenes, which balanced things out. The ending was excellent, and yeah, it was more of Kim’s madness, which was beyond words, great to read. I got major “Carrie” by Stephen King vibes at the end, but taken to even more extreme levels. Don’t worry, I’d never spoil anything for you, but wow, what a demented way to end this book!

I give “Full Brutal” by Kristopher Triana a 4/5 for being another solid splatterpunk book that made me make faces while reading. Yeah, the horror here is extreme, the sexual horror parts are crazy, and overall, it checks almost all the boxes I look for in a splatterpunk book. The pacing was a bit slow and dragged at times, and the whole Kim referring to her “sex” was distracting, but this was still one hell of a ride.