A review by 9brightshiners
This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-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

4.5

Mostly enjoyed this one! The everyday horror of transforming into and living as a 'monster' felt realistic and well thought out. Many elements of the plot and resolution depended upon privileged characters in a way that prevented me from feeling truly immersed or connected with characters at times. There is some aspect of found family in this story, but to me it felt disjointed and ultimately acted as a springboard for romantic relationships. Overall this was a queer teen coming of age story with a solid plot, emotional depth, and a mix of existential horror and gore that kept me engaged and rooting for the main characters. I appreciated the chapters from other characters' POVs and the media quotes and clippings from the fictional pandemic. They added a lot to the world building and helped build empathy and establish motivation for characters that wouldn't be possible if everything was from main character Zoe's perspective.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, and Medical trauma

Minor: Deadnaming, Drug use, Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol

The fictional monsters (ghouls) in this book are humans who underwent mutations during a pandemic and were driven to cannibalism. They are able to live human-like lives because of the creation of lab grown human meat. Trauma from the pandemic, discrimination against ghouls, internalized shame, gore, and body horror are prominent throughout the book. Most main characters are queer, one is trans, some are POC and real world discrimination against these identities also exists in this book. Frequent underage alcohol use. Drug use is nonconsensual (drug is fictional). Hate crime is against fictional identity specific to book.