This Delicious Death
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
From the author of the New York Times bestselling My Dearest Darkest comes another incredible sapphic horror. When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.
Two years ago, a small percentage of population underwent a transformation known as the Hollowing. Those affected were only able to survive by consuming human flesh. The people who went without quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. Luckily, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy their hunger. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal.
Cut to Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine, four hollow girls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before graduation they decide to attend a musical festival in the heart of the desert. They have a cooler filled with seltzer, vodka, 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 in one of the bands. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is targeting people like them. And if they can’t figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is getting out alive.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cottingham (My Dearest Darkest) weaves a fresh take on the zombie meta in this blood-curdling horror novel that takes place two years after an unusual pathogen is released from melting icecaps. High school best friends Zoey Huxley, Celeste Fairbanks, Valeria Vega, and Jasmine Owusu have all contracted the disease, called the Hollowing, which causes the afflicted, known as ghouls, to crave human flesh. Fortunately, scientists have invented SynFlesh, a lab-grown substitute that, when eaten, can stave off the ghouls' insatiable hunger. Thus sated, the quartet's condition isn't going to stop them from attending Desert Bloom, a music festival in the Mojave Desert. Upon arrival, the teens are invited to a party by one of the headlining bands. When Val suddenly disappears, the girls' search for her reveals that she has been drugged into a murderous frenzy—and has already consumed one of the bandmates. Centering variously queer and racially diverse characters, whose interpersonal and ghoulish challenges are portrayed with equal gravitas, Cottingham impressively explores solidly teen issues regarding self-image against the backdrop of a haunting mystery and mystifying illness. Visceral horror depictions, a climbing body count, and socially conscious prose elevate this jaw-dropping chiller. Ages 14–up. Agent Erica Bauman, Aevitas Creative Management.
Customer Reviews
Hot Ghoul Summer
I think sapphic/queer YA horror is my new favourite genre. This book was one of my highly anticipated 2023 releases and it absolutely lived up to the hype for me.
This delicious death follows a tight knit group of friends as they head to a music festival with an esky full of drinks and synthetic flesh. The 4 girls are ghouls who survived 'the hollowing', a pandemic where an unknown pathogen caused a percentage of the population to turn into zombie-like ghouls with a hunger for only human flesh. Thanks to the creation of SynFlesh, they're back to living their normal teenage lives, until one of the girls goes 'feral' on the first night of the festival and accidentally eats a boy after being drugged and they begin the race against time to save their fellow ghouls, the festival and possibly humanity.
I ate this book up (pun kind of intended). The chapters were short and addicting, The start of each chapter had an flashback, epigraph or some new information that left me struggling to put it down. I could have easily read this is one sitting.
I loved so much of this book and I can't wait till its release date so I can buy a copy for my shelf. I absolutely adored the four main characters, they each brought something unique to the group and I loved the sense of 'found family' between the girls. The book also had great LGBTQIA+ representation and the relationship in the book is probably one of my favourite friends-to-lovers to date. I also loved that there was plenty of witty millennial style humour which added a light-hearted touch to the underlying gore/horror themes.
Overall, I adored this book and I'll probably never shut up about it. I started recommending it to people before I even finished reading it, A true queer horror masterpiece.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and SourceBooks Fire for providing me with this e-ARC in exchange for a voluntary honest review.