e-Audio, 08:30:48
Narrated by: Sophie Amoss
Release Date: April 25, 2023
Published by: Recorded Books, Inc.
Read from: June 18-19, 2023
Stand-alone
Source: Library’s Libby
TW: Sexism, Transmisia mentioned, Child neglect, Deadnaming, Anxiety mentioned, Intrusive thoughts, Nightmares, Suicidal ideation, implied Alcohol consumption, Drugging, Graphic blood & gore depiction including dead bodies and body parts, Body horror, Graphic cannibalism, Pandemic, Scars, Needles & syringes, Grief & loss depiction, Death of a grandparent, Death of a sibling, Murder, Gun violence, Captivity & confinement, Fire
For Readers Interested In: Horror, LGBTQ+, Zombies, YAFour best friends, one music festival, and a cooler filled with human organs: this summer is about to get gory.
Jennifer’s Body fans will clamor for this new sapphic horror standalone from New York Times bestselling author Kayla Cottingham.
Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they’d pejoratively dubbed ghouls.
Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.
But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can’t figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.
*MY THOUGHTS*
This is by far the weirdest book I’ve read in a while. It usually takes a lot to get to me, but this one actually got me. I wasn’t so much as scared, I was more so disgusted. And that made me think twice about reading it. (I do most of my reading at night when my kid is asleep at night.) But I had to know what happened. So I read it all.
First off I have to say I REALLY need to start reading the synopsis of books. I always read it once to decide if I want to add it to my TBR and then forget about it when it’s time to read it. And this is one time I should have read it lol I probably wouldn’t have read it. I don’t necessarily like zombie books. They’re not actually my jam. But this one snuck in and I just let it happen. And once I started it I couldn’t stop reading it. It was weirdly addicting and I just couldn’t stop reading it.
For the important stuff, if the pandemic is a trigger for you, please be mindful when you read this. It all starts with some permafrost melting and releasing some weird stuff into the air. It made everyone sick. But some of those people got really sick. Sick enough to make them start eating people. I’m not exaggerating this at all. All of this is re-told in the story. There’s like these little flashbacks that tell each character and what their (origin?) story was. It was sad, but also creepy. I hated what they went through, but I also was happy they even survived.
The plot for this was cool but Idk if it was done effectively. They’re at something like Cochaella but then they see that ghouls like them are going crazy when one of their own friends gets drugged with something that makes ghouls erratic and turn into something else. Normally I don’t like drugs in books, but this one was one for zombies, so I think it’s safe to say I won’t have to worry about my teens getting their hands on it lol When they get erratic like that they from a ghoul level 3 to a ghoul level 20. And quickly. But in between each of those things were the little flashbacks that told about how they got there and all that. That usually threw me out of the story. I think I would have liked it more if this was a sequel. It wasn’t bad, but I do wish it had been it’s own separate thing.
The characters were also good. They were all different and they all had their own thing. One of them is in love with another, and that same love interest in trans, another one of them is very much into the terrible type of guys, and on and on. They all had their own personality but somehow their group just worked. I loved getting to know them. Did I agree with all the things they did? No. But they were also ghouls, so yeah. I wasn’t expecting it.
The plot twist was one I didn’t see coming though. I thought it was the other person. But when things started pointing towards the culprit, I was so annoyed that they got me too. And of course that made me like the book more lol Anything that can fool me is definitely one that I enjoyed. And for that reason I’m going to recommend this to my teens. I just wanna know if they get got like I did lol
This was so different than what I usually read, but it was also really, really good. I was disgusted/scared and thought it was so weird. But the weird is what made it good. This was such an interesting world and I really wish more people read this horror sapphic love story.
Overall, I give this
