Stephanie is a girl that just wants what other girls her age has, the attention of a few or more boys and friends. Instead, she is picked on and targeted by bullies at school. When she meets a mysterious man named Adrien, who promises to make her wishes come true, she has to decide whether making her dreams come true is worth the ultimate sacrifice. ( )

This is a book about a sick group of teenagers nearing graduation who have zero parental guidance, engage in pass around sex, illicit drug use, and with vicious cruelty, bully less attractive peers. The author did a great job with Mick Morris and Kitty Martine - they are definitely characters that you love to hate - and he also threw in a little paranormal activity. This was good writing. ( )

This book grabs you from the first word and pulls you in. The story starts out as bullying. But then turns demonic. I loved the twists. The characters were believable and strong. The story was enthralling. I had to read on to see what happened. I literally couldn't put it down. The story was a fascinating psychological insight into bullying at a major level and then into the demonic and how it can also turn. Well worth the read. ( )

Stephanie Zellar has spent her entire life feeling ugly being humiliated for her extreme acne by her nemesis Kitty Martine who calls her names like miss pizza face and spaghetti face. her only ally is Charlie Hubbard a lanky, geeky boy who adores her and finally convinces her to go out with him. Charlie has his own nemesis in Mick Morris the quarterback of the football team who loves to mock and beat him up. Kitty and Mick have are both evil they love to hurt people and make them suffer, they both are beautiful and use that beauty to get whatever they want. When Stephanie meets a beautiful man named Adriane at a club he tells her she is special and to leave because something bad was going to happen but to come to his special party next Friday. In school Stephanie can stand no more of Kitty's abuse so when she is attacked in the school bathroom Stephanie fights back clawing Kitty's pretty face badly. Kitty is enraged by this and enlists the aid of Mick to make Stephanie pay so they follow the couple to Adriane' party where Stephanie is given the choice to become the beauty she has always wanted to be and she agrees but never asks the cost. Now beautiful she leaves the party with Charlie only to find her beauty will only be for that one night. Charlie is beaten to death by Mick and Stephanie has her throat slit by Kitty then they are both dosed in gas and set on fire. Stephanie doesn't die she becomes one of the stratum beings of neither heaven or hell, neither good or evil who watch over the earth but before she accepts her place she asks to get her revenge on Mick and Kitty. Stephanie knows she must complete her time with the Stratum before she can join her love Charlie who is waiting for her. A fast paced moving story that combines the desperation of being different in high school with a touch of romance, a horrible murder and finally revenge then salvation. I was given this book to read in exchange for a voluntary review. ( )

Grant Palmquist writes strange stuff. That is a compliment. In Feral Beauty we have a mixture of a predictable story at first, then a surprising twist, then an occult story. The writing is so good that even the predictable part is good because it is well written.

“More than anything, Stephanie Zeller wanted to be beautiful. Eighteen years of ugliness had worn her out.” (loc 47). With those two first lines, the predictable part provokes our expectations. Of course, she will not have a boyfriend. Charlie Hubbard talks to her but Stephanie is confident it is out of pity. For these two we don’t even think of sex. They don’t. Neither has experienced a first kiss, forget about the bases.

That is not true for a cabal of girls led by Kitty Martine. She has managed to experience all conventional sex and has moved on to bondage and amateur carving of some partners. Her friends Amber and Violet are similar in their use of dispensing sexual favors as condiments. Mick Norris is the high school varsity quarterback hero who can have any girl he wants at any time. True, he hasn’t been with Kitty yet but there is an inevitability about that.

Stephanie’s existence, her acne face, and the scrawny figure is an annoyance to the beautiful Kitty. Kitty and her friends bully Stephanie in very physical ways, such as fights in the bathroom. A similar thing happens to Charlie who suffers physical abuse from Mick. In this first part of the novel, physical violence occurs at ever increasing levels because the bullies cannot provoke reactions they want from the bullied. Stephanie and Charlie commiserate with each other about the senseless provocations they receive. At one point Stephanie has had enough and she reacts with vigor leaving scars on the face of the beautiful Kitty.

Kitty decides she must have revenge. Mick will be her instrument of revenge. Kitty tells mike to ask Stephanie on a date. The reader expects a prom erupting in blood and gore but this is not to be. Stephanie has seen that movie too and she refuses to go out with Mick. Mick is furious, how could any female resist him? Kitty is furious, how could any plan of hers not work? It’s time for Plan B.

And that is where the predictability ends. Things go horribly wrong. And the reader enters the realm of the occult. Charlie is dead, maybe. Stephanie is dead, maybe. Whatever their state is, the cause of it was actions by Kitty and Mick. Stephanie wants revenge and she is not going to let a minor thing like death stop her. This is the point where the descriptive writing becomes particularly good. The reader who loves immersion in horror and the occult completely with a surrogate Satan who offers choices will comfortably wallow in the detailed description of something that might be hell, might be purgatory, or might be something else.

And what of Mick and Kitty. Kitty is evolving before the reader as a cold, budding, novice psychopath. Mick is beginning to realize his position as a big fish in a small pond. And high school is over. He is suspicious that McDonalds might be his future. What of their futures?

They might not know. But Grant Palmquist does. And the reader will discover interesting concluding twists when they read this book. ( )