Kayla CottinghamRecensioni

3.5 stars

Picked this one up on a whim and I’m SO GLAD I did. I loved the setting of a music festival and I was here for every second of the eye rolling at the men in this book. Theres a mention of similarity to Jennifer’s Body on the blurbs and I totally get why. This book was fun from start to finish.

3.5 rounded up, I’m a sucker for a good gory YA horror in October

I'm not sure what I expected from this, as I went in mostly blind, but I don't think it was this. That being said, I very much enjoyed this book. It was a unique take that was pretty well done. The backstory, while done in flashbacks and brief news stories, was brief, but it didn't leave me with any unanswered questions. We got perspectives from the four MFCs and from a few side characters. There were parts where the characters got on your nerves, but they were likable. I felt like I was in danger and mystery with them. There was a side of UST that were prevalent throughout but didn't overtake the entire plot. Honestly, I couldn't have asked for more in a book with teenage, lesbian cannibals.

I love the idea of queer zombie roadtrip with the girlies, but once they actually reached their destination I lost a little bit of interest. All the characters were nice and fleshed out, including tragic backstories of how they became “ghouls” during The Hollowing. I kind of wish the author was a little more adventurous with the story. It felt too cut and dry, wish there had either been more mystery or some other conflict to continue the story.

Like yes the world building and character backgrounds are super solid… but then the story that was being told (solving the mystery at the music festival) just felt kind of bland in comparison. Put these girls in more situations!!!

A lot of the chapters are interspersed with articles, radio talk shows, book excerpts about hollow/ghoul chatter to help with world building outside of the girl’s core experiences. I found it interesting they all have to have an app to track their whereabouts/meal tracking for the safety of humans around them. Kind of neat allegory to house arrest/being on parole as a marginalized group.

I loved the overall tone of the book, it was super easy to get through and some moments were genuinely hilarious. I thought it had good diversity in the queer department (only one of the main girls is cis and straight), but then on the other hand, the girls with by far the most screen time were the white ones (the Latina is missing for like half the book!!

This was fun! I thought that I had read books featuring just about every supernatural being out there but once I saw this book I realized that I had yet to pick up a book with main characters that were ghouls. I have read a book or two where ghouls are worked into this story but this was my first experience reading one where the ghoul took center stage and I must say that it was a very entertaining read. I am so glad that I took a chance and decided to give this book a try.

Zoey, Celeste, Jasmine, and Valeria became ghouls after the Hollowing swept the world. They can live a very normal life eating synthetic flesh and are excited to attend the first music festival since the Hollowing. Things don’t go according to plan and Val ends up eating a boy. The group soon learns that there is a more sinister plan in the works. I especially enjoyed the flashback scenes that gave the reader insight into how the change played out for each of the key characters.

I thought that the mystery in this story was very well done and I loved that the story kept me guessing until the end. I thought that the fact that the main characters were ghouls added a very interesting and original element to the story. I really liked all of the characters and appreciated the LGBTQ+ representation. The fact that there is a bit of romance worked into the story is just icing on the cake.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to others. I found this book to be incredibly entertaining and almost impossible to put down once I started reading. I hope to read more of this author’s work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Sourcebooks Fire.

This is cool and spooky and atmospheric, it's got a great FEEL to it, but seriously—is it actually possible for several distinct groups of teens to be this stupid? I mean, really. Who gets played this badly by demonic/eldritch forces who honestly don't even seem to be trying that hard?