BookTok uncovers grisly read that’s essentially ‘Squid Game’ but with kids

WARNING: The following article contains mentions of child endangerment, child death, and vague descriptions of gore.

As if Squid Game hadn’t enthralled us enough in 2021, TikTok has found a novel by Aron Beauregard, a known splatterpunk author, called Playground. Beauregard’s gorefest hit the shelves in 2022, over a year after Korean drama series Squid Game aired on Netflix, and essentially retells the story of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s poverty-stricken free-for-all, but this time with children.

Playground sees a group of dysfunctional families, all of whom are struggling financially, approached to test out some revolutionary playground equipment. With the incentive that their participation will be handsomely rewarded, the families agree to partake and sign their children up. Soon after, the adults find themselves locked in a viewing room and forced to watch on the monitors as their children are brutally slaughtered, all for the sadistic entertainment of Geraldine, the creator.

TikTok seems to have waited a whole other year before discovering Playground, but now that content creators are going ape over one of Beauregard’s latest, all those uncomfortable emotions have come swarming back. Needless to say, Beauregard outdid himself with Playground, and TikTok users are struggling to pry their eyes away. Even worse, some of them can’t make it past the first 40 pages.

As we’ll remember from Squid Game, the participants are presented with seemingly harmless ‘challenges’ to complete, but soon discover that one small slip-up will result in their immediate ‘disqualification’ from the competition.

In the same vein, the children in Playground are tricked into believing that they’ll win a substantial amount of money for the families by simply having fun. They’re forced to make difficult decisions and grow up drastically fast in order to survive when it’s revealed that Geraldine is an infamous child murderer.

If gore churns your stomach, this definitely isn’t the book for you, but if you’ve shamelessly enjoyed Saw and The Human Centipede — or you loved Squid Game — then maybe this is right up your alley. We won’t judge you for enjoying Playground… we promise.