Cannibal Jungle

by Jon Athan

During a business trip to Uruguay, Nathan Reed’s commercial airline is caught in a powerful storm over the Amazon Jungle. The plane crashes somewhere along the Brazilian-Peruvian border, leaving a handful of survivors stranded in the rainforest. They race to find potable water, medical supplies, and safe shelter. Their fight for survival intensifies when they are targeted by a mysterious group of uncontacted people in the Amazon... Jon Athan, the author of Cannibal Creek and City of Hunger, welcomes you to Cannibal Jungle in this violent, suspenseful survival-horror novel. Can you survive this gory journey? This novel contains graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

Genres: Horror, Splatterpunk, Adult, Amazon, Audiobook

191 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 3, 2019

Reviews

[Peter Topside · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I liked how much effort the author put into this. He really explored the character dynamics and this terrible situation they were all trapped in. And there is just an ungodly amount of violence and gore in here. Like I can't think of a single body part that wasn't mutilated or amputated. Athan wrote this as a gruesome survival story, and in that respect, he nailed it. I will agree with some of the other reviewers in that I really found myself struggling to connect with the characters. But I'm not positive that it was totally from a lack of development. Sure, they could have all used some more work, but I think that the story sort of found a cruise control setting fairly early on, and the bulk of the book tried to coast off that. And that caused an otherwise exciting story to drag a bit at times, as everything just felt familiar and repeated after awhile. I also didn't care for the ending, which left me feeling like the story had no real purpose. The characters just existed in this short instance, they were placeholders in a bloodbath, and there was no proper finale or resolution or character arc for anyone. But surface-level, if you look beyond all the inner workings, and just go on a bloody adventure in the jungle, you'll enjoy yourself. Beyond that, the story needed to be fine-tuned quite a bit to make it feel more complete and rounded out.

[Lady MacDeath · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was B R U T A L !! I love everything by Jon Athan, but you need a strong stomach to digest the extreme brutality of his books. This one was no exception! It reminded me of the ‘dodgy’ videos of the 80’s, such as ‘Cannibal Holocaust’. Despite being a teenager, my parents never allowed my sister or I to watch them, but we always had a sneak peek when they had a night out. This was similar to the 2013 movie by Eli Roth called ‘The Green Inferno’, where the survivors of a plane crash, which has gone down in Peru, get captured by an indigenous tribe. This was, as usual from JA, a brilliant read, and I highly recommend to anyone who likes extreme horror.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever seen the movie holocaust cannibal and others like that?
This is it - but more graphic and horrific. You get to experience pain , well imagine it, as you never experience before. It's full of macabre depictions of torture and despair. It's not grimdark, it's nihilism. I really enjoy everything. It's very fast pace and with less than 180 pages you can read before your summer and skip it because your tummy will not agree to eat nada afterwards.
For fans of other Jon Athan novels although more graphic. The only thing that I would change in this novel was the country. Brazil has a lot of uncontacted tribes but no cannibals at least for what I know. I don't even know if they would do that to make a stance/revenge etc. Probably papua nova guine would be a fitting place it has some uncontacted tribes & cannibalism and head hunting stuff. I would rate this book 8.5/10.

Note; as a Portuguese native I think your translation/phrases in Portuguese are spot on. You even got the "normal" Brazilian Portuguese speaking conjugation. Kudos to you. You even got the police/army right. Now for a more problematic info, it's horrific what is happening to all those tribes living in the amazons. They want to be left in peace, without outside interference and there isn't anyone to defend them. Then illegal miners, woodcutters & fazendeiros drive them even deeper into the forest &to do defend themselves. It's awful. The problem is that the police/army whatever are rather inefficient. We are talking of a place almost the size of Europe. The Amazon has 6.7 millions Klm2 while Europe has 10.7 and we are talking about from Portugal to the Urals. It's basically every country of Europe if you remove Russia's part from the equation. So...

[ItzSmashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was a violent book with careful craft put in to crafting grizzly scenes of gore. That is to my taste so this was the part I enjoyed the most. The story around these scenes though is fairly haphazard and I found myself just wanting to get back to the horror scenes. I was also not a big fan of the ending, very abrupt, in my opinion even though I do understand the authors intent. If you like extreme horror then I would reccommend this, but it's not for the faint of heart.

A flight to Uruguay malfunctions and crashes in the amazon rainforest. Nathan and a few other survivors go scouting for help and supplies. But they are captured by a group of natives and violently tortured. Can any of them escape?

[Mique Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this book and really enjoyed this! I was meaning to rewatch Cannibal Holocaust, but a reliable source told me to just read this instead. 😂And so I did! The scene at the beginning—which I won’t give away—is hands-down the most intense thing all year. That aside, Athan does a fantastic job at getting us to care for these characters. If you’ve read his other works, you’d know that he’s one of the few horror authors who’s willing to *go there*—so when a certain character popped up, I was instantly scared. The cannibalistic gore doesn’t start until about the 40% mark, but I was still thoroughly invested. The setting of the rainforest is sticky and alive. The gore itself if top notch and VERY descriptive & the way he handles the cannibals is very nuanced. I didn’t rate this as a 5 because the ending dragged a bit (guns are so fucking impersonal and boring to me) but overall: great stuff! Rest assured, your bloodlust will be satiated.

[MadameD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story 4/5
Narration 4/5

[K.L. Allister · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Cannibal Jungle”

Jon Athan

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay, first of all Mr. Athan, how DARE you resurface my fear of flying! But seriously, the imagery and the depictions of the setting in this one really set the tone. Our cadre of characters quickly realize their predicament accelerates from 0-60 at breakneck speed, and much like our MC Nathan, my fingers were dug into the seat.

Nathan, Cole, Michael, Christina, Mariah and Dylan are our main focuses as they brave the indigenous jungle after a horrific accident. Injury-laden and out of options, they cling to whatever slivers of hope they can hold onto—which the Amazon has assured is in short supply.

The jungle is beautiful, the gore is abundant and the yucks be yuckin’! Athan paints heavy strokes with a blood-soaked paintbrush, leaving VERY little breathing room on the easel. In true cannibalistic fashion, Cannibal Jungle will split your skull, rip out your heart and sink its teeth in, savoring every last bit.

Had a lot of fun with this one. Very Cannibal Holocaust-esque, which Athan attested to being an inspiration. Well done, sir! 👏

[Timbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read that left me on the edge of my seat the entire time! Very reminiscent of movies like Cannibal Holocaust/Cannibal Ferox. While I was rooting for everybody, I think Cole had to be my favorite character. With his calm, cool, level-headed personality I couldn't help but imagine him as the equally smooth actor Sam Elliot. The scenes of bloodshed were deliciously graphic which I would put on the level of Matt Shaw; certainly a plus in my book! The ending sort of caught me off-guard but the more I thought about it the more I appreciated it; it added to the realism. In the Amazon anything can happen! I really hope the author plans on writing a sequel. I'd absolutely devour another romp through the jungle with another group of crash survivors or maybe even a search party! 5 Stars!

[Amy McDonnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was unfortunately just ok. I love cannibal horror so thought I would enjoy this but it really struggled to hold my interest. Very similar storyline to The Green Inferno or Cannibal Holocaust. However one thing I do love about Jon Athan is that he always manages to create sympathetic characters which makes his books more compelling to read.

[Veronica ☠️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathan is on a plane headed to Uruguay for a business trip. The plane is going over the Amazon jungle when it crashes. Nathan and Cole, the man sitting next to him, are the only survivors. That is, until they find a couple more people and survival mode is in high gear. They try to find food and essential things they need until search and rescue come and save them. They set camp somewhere together, and they settle in for the night. All seems to be ok until the young boy says he saw a person in the dark staring at them.

On top of trying to find survivors, eat, and find rescue, they will soon face a new challenge. A tribe of indigenous people who live deep in the jungle who don't speak the same language will come and defend their people. They witnessed the burning thing in the sky (the plane crash) fall and kill one of their young boys. They will do anything to protect their people from strangers.

Brutal in the best way! Some of the deaths in here were so damn good! The machete head split and the cutting out the heart were chefs kiss! Athans' descriptions of the jungle throughout the book were really good. They set the tone of the book, and it was a nice touch. I will say I absolutely hated Nathan's character. Some stuff he did was annoying and made me angry! But the cannibals made up for Nathan. If you loved brutal deaths, this one's for you.

[Cherise Isabella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first book by Jon Athan, and it was just okay for me. Nothing stood out, and though the book was short, it failed to hold my attention.

I did like the setting though. That coupled with the cannibalism and carnage, it made for a fear inducing read. The torture scenes were well described and left very little to the imagination. After a while, though, it did become a little too repetitive, and I got bored very quickly.

The characters unfortunately I did not connect with either. Overall, it's not a bad read, but not my favorite either. I will try more of this author in the future though. Hopefully, I enjoy those reads more.

[Alenna Burleson · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this story we follow Nathan which on his flight to Uruguay, his plane fails and crashes in the middle of the rainforest. Him and a handful of other survivors, travel through the jungle together just trying to survive and find a way to get help, when they run into a tribe in the middle of nowhere, who aren’t very happy to see them.

This story was the first i’ve read in the genre, I really enjoyed the remote atmosphere. The gore was very well done and didn’t feel necessarily repetitive for how often it was done. Definitely a cool subgenera of extreme horror that I could get into. The characters could have had more depth besides Cole, but you can definitely appreciate the research that was put into this book.

[Nelli Lakatos · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book! It was dark gory and brutal just what I wanted in this extreme horror! The characters were great I loved getting to know them through the story, I felt like I was in the jungle with them.
If you are a horror fan I highly recommend reading this or any book by Jon Athan, all of his books are amazing!

[Sharon Leung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Immense

This book was thrilling from the very start. Tragedy then a huge gore fest til the very end. I was engaged from the second i turned the first page until the last. I think I'm still slightly base stuck after reading this book. I absolutely loved it. If you are a gore freak then you will love this book. The storyline is thrilling and so detailed i could envision every drop of blood. A definite read for lovers of extreme violence and gore.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first excursion into Mr. Athan's terrifying mind. A pretty rough ride throughout. Wall to wall blood and gore. A quick read that once it got going, you could tell the body count was going to rise faster than the bile in your throat.

Short and to the point. A plane crashes in South America. A handful of survivors try to make it out to civilization when they run into tribal cannibals. Dismemberment.Eviscerated. Disembowelment to follow.

[Shadow Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another one that I didn't scoop up on it's release date, (that doesn't happen much anymore, I've learned my lesson!)
I was happily engrossed right away, though, and this was a much more enjoyable story than I anticipated. This isn't just another typical cannibal story, either. It's new, and full of emotions that you won't expect to feel, but can't help it.

[JameReads2012 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a lot to process. The brutality, the gore, and body horror were unmatched. Not for the faint of heart it truly was extreme horror.

[Shana Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad!

Ok so this book was pretty cool. I did skim it a few times tho. The story really is just a retelling of the Green Inferno with very few differences. The ending was different.. not something I saw coming so that was a nice surprise! I think the characters were well written and the scenes were very well done as well! I think using too many of the technical terms for some body parts was a bit of a throw off if you didnt know what they were tho. However I liked that the writter spent the time to research them..but personally found it un necessary. I give it 3 stars because it was a fun quick read and I did enjoy the deaths.

[Mark Woods · Rating 1 out of 5]

All guts, no glory

Cannibal jungle starts off with a plane crash.
The few survivors begin trying to find their way out of the jungle, fearing the worst that no-one is coming to rescue them, but instead find themselves being hunted by an indigenous tribe of cannibals.
This was an okay kind of book, but I have read much better and it soon failed to maintain my interest.
Definitely not one of his better novels...

[Tam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A prime example of the adage "Don't judge a book by its cover.", as I am not at all fond of this cover. But, the tale inside... That's a savage and vicious cannibal of another color!

Athan lets his unique and twisted imagination run wild with masochistic abandon through the jungle of pages that comprise this book. Another chuck-bucket-worthy winner!

[Zach Hilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extreme tale of disturbing horror
Plane crash - Check
Cannibals - Check
Extreme detailed murders - check
A quick and bleak tale of survivors wishing they had died in the plane crash. Felt a bit gore for gores sake in places and could do with a bit of editing (duplicate and wrong names)
Do not read if you are easily offended, I can stomach a lot but kids being butchered is pushing it
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cannibal Jungle" is a perfect throwback to both older Italian cannibal movies like Ruggero Deodato's "Cannibal Holocaust" and also to the classic pulp fiction horror of the same era. I have never read a Jon Athan novel before, they have often eluded me and part of me always dismissed his work based on the fact he somehow manages to put a book out every time you blink. 

This novel was quite well written however and very soon I found myself engaged with the plot and violence found within. And on violence.. Jon Athan seems to excel. This is an unflinching novel on the survivors of a plane crash, left to fight for themselves in a jungle that wants them dead. The group are fairly rapidly caught by an indigenous tribe who treat them to some very realistic and disturbing torture. All of this despite it's brutality is handled very well, the death doesn't feel cheap or feel like it was done just for shock value. 

My only misgivings with the novel were the paper thin characters, though this probably isn't required with the story at hand. The ending was also a little weak in comparison to the rest of the story. 

All in all though I really enjoyed this story and am looking forward to checking out more by Jon Athan in the near future.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well… I guess even the best authors have their duds.

Never thought I’d see the day I give a Jon Athan book anything lower than a 3. He’s constantly writing some of the best extreme horror literature there is, but in my head I just want to pretend this book wasn’t written by him.

If I had to sum Cannibal Jungle up into one word it would be “pointless”. The main character is such a pussy and would have been a more believable 7 year old than an adult. The rest of the characters are pointless too and do very little. The cannibals aren’t scary. The scenes don’t leave any impact.

I don’t know… I just don’t know…

[Klaus Kinion · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brutal extreme horror inspired by Cannibal Holocaust, what's not to love? I listened to the audiobook version, read by the great Harry Roger Williams III (although there are no silly voices this time, like in his wonderful performances of the Do Not Disturb trilogy and Into The Wolves' Den).

I appreciate that Jon Athan chooses not to name a specific real indigenous group out of cultural sensitivity, and the motives of the tribespeople are nuanced. The environment and animals are well-researched. These were classy moves, but then we also get relentless gore and a mind-blowing ending so tasteless that I wanted to stand up and give it a round of applause.

[Tobias · Rating 5 out of 5]

A harrowing story of survival horror and cannibals. Cannibal Jungle was a fast paced nightmare of a worse case scenario. Athan builds tension with empathy and hope contrasted with the shock and distress. 

If you enjoy 70s and 80s cannibal films I highly recommend this book. 

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This is a quick, easy read with some thought put into it, but for me, a lot of factors conspired to make it bore me or pull me out of the narrative, which is the last thing that should be happening in a gross-out jungle-survival cannibal-o-rama. I’m going to run through these factors Top Ten style, unless I run out of complaints, in which case I’ll stop.

1. Given the story starts off with a plane crash that leaves hundreds dead, the author tries to give the characters some “oh the humanity!” type stuff about the unfairness of life and the vagaries of fate and all that. It’s good to see him attempt some characterization, but I don’t think he’s a strong enough writer to pull it off. To go back to John Halkin, of all people, he may have been writing trashy novels about jellyfish conquering Britain, but I believed those were real people dealing with jellyfish. Something about how these characters talk to themselves and spell it out their every last thought and motivation made this all feel like a rough draft, without the author paring things down to the point of nuance and subtlety.

2. This story is essentially torture porn, and it does manage to elicit some winces—how could it not, when just about every character gets some genital mutilation done on ‘em?—but the writing is so long-winded and technical that instead of being in the characters’ heads, being horrified at their fate, it’s more like reading a Wikipedia article on all the tortures inflicted on them. The writing portrays some gunfights and there’s paragraphs that are just like “The tribesman was hit by a bullet. Then he was hit by another bullet. Then he was hit by yet another bullet.”

I thought this was a *mondo cannibale* tribute! I know there’s literal blood and guts, but where’s the metaphorical blood and guts? The verve? The feeling? Put some heart into the prose!

3. This is kind of a subheader to the above, but so many characters will give these paragraph-long speeches about how they don’t want to die while they’re being tortured to death!

Christina said, “Don’t hurt him. Hurt me, fuck me, eat me. Do whatever you want to me, but don’t touch him. You, um… You’re better than that, aren’t you? I’ve seen your kids. They’re good kids so they must have good parents, right? Let him go and walk away while you still have your pride. Please, don’t hurt this child because of an accident. Even if you don’t believe us, don’t hurt him for someone else’s sins.”

That’s an example. Do you think you would be able to say something that articulate while you were having all your limbs hacked off? I think it’s more likely you’d just be cursing and screaming. Brevity, man! It’s the soul of wit!

4. There’s this weird elaborate backstory where the tribespeople are torturing the plane crash survivors because of this big misunderstanding and they’re not really bad people they just have this really old tradition of castrating people and murdering them and eating them. And it’s like Oh. We’re being tasteful now? We’ve had graphic descriptions of a half-dozen children dying, but let’s keep things PC. No need to slander Indigenous peoples in our tribute to Italian exploitation movies.

It just comes off as silly to me. I’m sure no one is going to take a self-published cannibal novel that seriously as an accurate depiction of the inhabitants of the Brazilian rain forest, so don’t be so responsible. It really puts a damper on the mood. Imagine if you were screwing around with your buddies, drinking beer and smoking weed, and suddenly your best pal turned to you and went “hey man… just so you know… it’s never okay to hit a woman.”

What the fuck are you talking about, dude? We’re just having a bunch of dumb fun, you don’t have to put a message into it!

5. This story is written in third-person omniscient, but in a kind of half-assed way. You’ll be locked into a character’s POV, and then suddenly the text will describe what kind of crops the natives plant or what they make their facepaint out of—stuff the plane crash survivors have no way of knowing—and you’re just like what? I was in this guy’s head! Is he clairvoyant now?

And the author gets really cheap with this later on, explaining exactly what the natives are thinking and feeling, and the political situations of the would-be rescuers. Just the most blatant info-dumping. I would call it exposition, only the narrative doesn’t even do you the courtesy of going “As you know, Bob.” It just straight-up, turns to the camera, tells you “this is who this guy is and what he’s doing.” And maybe if the whole book were like that, it’d work, but it just feels off to me to go from having viewpoint characters to reading an encyclopedia entry on everyone.

6. That’s all I have bye.

[Jamie Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

🩸❌ Splatter Chatter Book Club Pick: March 2025 ❌🩸

Another fun Jonny Athan read! This is one of his books from quite a few years ago and it is cool to see that his writing continues to progress.

Our MC, Nathan, is about to get on a plane for a business trip to Uruguay. He is nervous about flying and leaving his family for weeks but it’s what will help them financially. The plane ride unfortunately turns into a nightmare and ends up crashing into the Amazon Jungle (somewhere along the Brazilian-Peruvian border) but Nathan does survive along with some others. There are poisonous snakes and animals and insects, not enough food and water and everyone is suffering some type of injury but together maybe the survivors can make it to safety and get some help. But this wouldn’t be a bloody gory nasty Athan book if things didn’t take another turn for the worse. Unfortunately the survivors come across an unknown indigenous group of people who are not impressed that a giant explosion has rained down on their home and they don’t give one single 💩 who they need to take out to make these people pay.

You know, I’m not all that afraid of flying. I have more anxiety thinking I’ll have to sit next to someone who gets motion sickness than I do of the plane crashing. However, Athan does a great job creating a tense and horrifying scene when the plane crashes. Going to be hard to not remember that next time I fly! The deaths were a lot of fun but not as brutal as some of the deaths in his other books. This book definitely reminded me of Green Inferno and as much hate that movie got I actually found it a lot of fun! The ending was wild in this book, I don’t know how I feel about it besides what a hell of a way to go out. 🕷️ I love Athan’s writing style and it’s so fun that every single one I read from him is a different horror trope. He’s good at what he does.

Happy reading, weirdos. 💀✨

[Doug Brunell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Welcome to the Jungle

Being a fan of cannibals and having written stories about them myself, I was excited to read this. Also, being a fan of "Cannibal Holocaust" meant this book was an automatic must-read. Is it good, though? Yes . . . but it isn't great.

The characters, setting, and circumstances drove this story. Unfortunately, none of it lasts long enough. To be truly effective we really needed to bond with these plane crash survivors while they waited for rescue in the jungle. What finds them first, however, is a tribe bent on making them pay for a perceived transgression. And then it's over. We never get to fully know these people, and their situation never sinks in fully enough. Had we only had more time before the torture began . . . and that is where the story kind of derails.

I got the distinct impression Athan cared more about writing the gore than the story. Sure, a cannibal tale will be bloody, but gore is easy. The gross out doesn't take much skill. If he didn't have the talent to pull off the story, this would be forgivable. He does have the talent, however, and chose to sell himself short here.

[Adam Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this book. I am beginning to become a huge fan of Athan and his writing style. A couple scenes in this one really got to me and I have literally read about 1,000 horror novels. It is quick, brutal, and a blast to read. My only complaint concerns the writing or rather, the lack of effective editing. On Kindle page 161, a character is described as juking over bushes. I am going to go incredibly far out on the thinnest of limbs and say the author meant to say jumping. The worst offense though was on Kindle page 143 where Christina is described as being alive and seeing Christina with her head chopped in half. She saw Mariah obviously, but this is jarring and totally distracting from the story and also, at least to me, makes me feel like I am reading something cheap and lazy. I hate saying that because I am going to start another Athan novel, Into the Wolf’s Den, write after posting this, but please fix these errors!

[Robbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holy crap

A while back a fellow horror geek and I stayed up all night watching random films. As soon as one ended we already had the next one we wanted to download picked out, so it went on and on until the sun was up. Anyway one of the films we watched was Green Inferno, a very twisted and disturbing movie. This book reminded me a lot of that film and I loved it. I also like that Cannibal Jungle reads at a fast pace from start to finish. No boring filler, straightforward survival thriller, with a shocking, darkly humorous ending. Be advised, super graphic but highly recommended for die harders