Reviews tagging 'Death'

Eat Your Heart Out by Kelly deVos

25 reviews

kingrosereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging funny tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

An upper YA horror comedy and science fiction with plus sized baddies and zombies? Yes please! 

The book follows multiple point of views (Vivian, Allie, Paul, Rachel, Steven, and Sheldon). All but Steve are high schoolers attending Camp Featherlite, a fat camp. Some of the campers want to be there and others don’t. Then there’s Steve, their Facilitator, who’s just there to help pay for college. It’s holiday break in the mountains outside of Flagstaff, Arizona and these teens are trekking through a blizzard into what will become a hellish nightmare where not everyone survives. Only two days into what is meant to be a two-week camp, and campers have suddenly turned into mindless, powerful zombies. Our campers have to put their secrets and misgivings aside to help each other survive. 

I think this book was incredible. A lot of f-bombs for a YA but I love it cause that’s exactly how 17 year old me talked. I love the badass plus-sized hero and she wields a damn plastic oar against zombies. And they’re the fast and strong kind of zombies were scare me so much more than normal zombies. 

It’a a little meta. I hate that certain characters died and there’s an unsatisfying ending, but I appreciate the social commentary on the treatment of fat people. As a plus sized woman, I would’ve loved to see myself represented positively when I was a teen and I think this is a kickass book for older teen girls struggling with society having a problem with their weight. 

I wish there was more diversity in the book. It was commenting on privilege a lot but mostly just skinny privilege and wealth. 

Great book! Will read another by deVos in the future. 



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gabbyjc's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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nikasbookcollection's review against another edition

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adventurous funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

When a group of five is sent to a fat camp, all having their own reasons, things seem to get out of hand with the suspicious cure to obesity that doesn't seem very trustworthy and some monsters lurking around the corners of the camp. This idea was incredible but many elements fell flat for me.

The main characters were literally sorted into archetypes from the beginning, and I found that made them feel flat, especially since they almost followed it to a T. I found myself not caring for them at all, even when they were hurt or dying. The relationships between them also felt superficial, especially the romance thrown in at the last moment that made zero sense and ruined some of the scenes for me. We definitely could have gone without that. I loved the messages of loving your body and how people who are fat don't need to be "fixed", there were many positive messages and I loved seeing different body sizes in fiction when the norm is often pretty thin women. The Multi-POV did not hit it for me, it felt messy in many spots and ruined those chapters that it did. And perhaps spinning around five, or six POVs, not well done, making it more difficult to connect with the characters.

The plot itself was interesting but not as thrilling as I would have expected from an apocalypse-esque story, and the ending felt completely rushed. The concept and body diversity however did make it a three-star.

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apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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risquish's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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kanita's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional inspiring sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

tears were shed.

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zoepagereader's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was not expecting this book to be like this. The last and only zombie book I’ve ever read was more or less a comedy and the title gave away that they all (or close enough to all) survive (Girls Save the World in This One). But this one has me questioning who would live and die up until the very last pages of the story, despite the character archetypes and odds of survival listed at the beginning. The concept was stellar and I’ve never seen anything like it*, but now I know that zombie books are something I need to hold out on. 5⭐️

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vaniavela's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75


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librarymouse's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I really enjoyed Eat Your Heart Out. It has profound character growth and insight into how different people react in traumatic situations for the main group, and it's a really engaging read. Kelly DeVos has a wonderful skill for describe setting in a way that draws the reader into the story. I think the concept behind how the zombies are made and develop is really interesting and unique to this story. 
I'm not giving Eat Your Heart Out a 5 star review partially because of how it uses the classic horror tropes, though the usage and breaking of these tropes is also one of my favorite parts of the book. I didn't like that
one of Vivian's first thoughts after Allison's death was to kiss Steve
It's 100% a trope used in slasher fiction all other time, but it's one of my least favorite tropes. The body positivity aspects of this book were also really well done. There was a strong message that thin doesn't equal healthy or strong without making the book didactic.

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lornmari's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

1) I picked up this book because it had a fat MC who kicks ass- honestly I didn’t have toooo high of hopes for it and perhaps that made it even better. The story itself is told from multiple perspectives (way more than 2) and at first I found that a little irritating. Moving forward in the story however it proved to be a tactful story telling device and really built that necessary connections for the cast of characters. 

2) The story primarily focuses on the crisis at hand but it does also try and fit in a romance. Admittedly I don’t feel it really added to the story but I guess it didn’t detract either- though he really could have been left out together. 

3) The beginning of the book feels a bit predictable but pretty quickly it takes a twist and if you’re anything like me you’ve pretty much relinquished all control and let the story drive itself- I honestly couldn’t predict much after the first 1/3 of the book. 

4) At no point did I have a solid grasp of what the characters looked like. I may have just missed that from their descriptions or their descriptions were pretty sparse. Aside from the book cover I had a hard time visualizing the characters 

TLDR; the book was great! A solid “zombie” story with a sizable cast of characters. Is it the best zombie/horror tale out there? I don’t know. Was it a lot of fun and interesting? YES! 

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