Overall: 3.8/5 rounded up to 4.
This was a good read, though it took some time to get into it—the beginning seems like it’s leaning too far into cryptic so that it feels a bit stilted, but this improves as the novel goes on. The descriptions of desert sickness and the creatures affected by it are truly grotesque and lend a haunting element to the novel that is quite memorable.

I’m not sure this story was for me. It seem like a lot was left unexplained and unanswered. I don’t know if I could recommend this to anyone. You may have to just read it yourself to see if you’d like it.


I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Magdala is only nine and was born with a clubfoot, and she and her father are exiles from their home. Travelling across the Sonoran Desert that is plagued by zombie-plant-like creatures, they try to find a place to belong away from violence and danger. They join a small group of pilgrims heading to the holy city of Las Vegas in search of healing from the relics of saints. It’s seven years before she’ll make it to Las Vegas, and only after taking an exiled priest hostage. Can Magdala find the healing that she yearns for and survive this wasteland?

I really had no idea what to expect from this work, but I was blown away by the time I finished it. The author excelled at creating an immersive, engaging, and realistic setting. It was easy to become lost in the story and the characters because of the atmospheric descriptions and vivid pictures that were provided of this wasteland. The author also seamlessly incorporated characters’ backstories and the different histories surrounding the “end of the world” in a way that created a rich backdrop for the plot. I would have liked to have a few more details included about the virus/zombie-ism that affected the desert, its creatures, and some people, but I still learned enough to keep me immersed in the world.

The book was set up in three sections. The first was told from nine-year-old Magdala’s POV, the middle section was told from her captive’s POV, and the last section was told from early-middle-aged Magdala’s POV. This was the perfect way to tell this story. It made it easy to become invested in Magdala as a protagonist while also getting a view of her that is unbiased by her opinion of herself, which provided some fascinating insights into her character. I would have liked if each section was titled in some way that depicted the movement of time (e.g., “Seven Years Later”) as it was a little difficult at first to become situated in each new section. The characters in this work all had their own, unique motivations and flaws, making every single character, no matter how small their role, feel well developed and alive.

This almost read like an old-timey western, but much more dystopian and post-apocalyptic. I highly enjoyed this read, though I wouldn’t classify it as one of horror. Many thanks to NetGalley, Erewhon Books, and Dreamscape Media for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader and audiobook copy of Desert Creatures by Kay Chronister in exchange for an honest review. This was a very interesting book and reminded me a bit of The Stand and a bit of The Book of Koli. Yet it had its own feel to it too, its own desert sickness that seeped through each page and character. It was bleak and beautiful, grim and gracious. I really enjoyed the writing and a new take on the dystopian genre.

I was surprised how much I loved this short, bleak dystopian novel. It's brimful of humanity, including the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between. It's all the in between that I found the most interesting. Magdala was difficult to know as a character but the landscape she survived in would have overwhelmed anyone and that resonated with me. Kay Chronister does beautiful work in bringing this hideous world to life. Best of all, in spite of the horror that seemed ever-present, my heart felt full of hope in the end.

What an excellent read. I'm a huge fan of dystopian fiction, especially when an author gives it a new twist. This really was exactly what I was looking for in a good dystopian novel.

This book is set in a time long after modern day and a place called the remainder. It is a stretch of desert somewhere between Texas and Nevada. the story starts off withMagdala in her dad being exiled from their desert home and are forced For days to travel the hot unforgiving desert and after so much exertion and no food they run across the first desert creature where is a man planted in the ground made of roots vines in human flesh, they are so hungry they eventually give in and engorged their self on the desert fruit. Her dad was already carrying her piggyback style through the desert due to her club foot but now he hast to do it at all times. Eating the desert fruit has gotten her what they call desert sick. Soon after eating it though they come up on an encampment with people in it. Here is where she meets Alma, her baby rose, Dellsinia and other members that make up the wolf head encampment. Here is where she will be Branded with her father‘s name and where she hear the stories that will not only change her life but who she is as a person. She learns about a saint in the spiritual town of Las Vegas if you go and kisses bones he will interseee with a blessing that could fix her club foot. Magdala had never heard of all the saints in Las Vegas before should heard about the pilgrims and knew a little about travelers but once she learned about a saint that could cure her she wanted to go.. OK I know this isn’t the best summary and trust me when I tell you this is the strangest but one of the best books I have ever read. If you like alternate world stories you really need to read this one it when I say it has para normal things in the book please do not take that for a cheesy call that could never happen kind of thing this is an authentic story with great world building and although it seems everything in the book was new to me the way the author wrote it out it was so easy to imagine. This is one of those magnetic books that you find hard to put down and that you think about when reading it is over. I just love this book and wish the author would write more stories in this world I just loved it. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.gh

I don't know if I've ever read a book quite like this one. I thought about it while working, while in the shower, while cooking... it just permeated my life and brain. The writing was unique and didn't drown itself in flowery prose, but somehow still felt poetic. The author's main character was someone I found myself relating to and I loved reading Magdala's journey.
In this book you get to read her growth over three separate times of her life. Three completely different seasons of her struggles, her life, and her dreams. If you're an adult reader, like I am, you can still remember the dreams of your youth but you may not still hold to them because as you grew you learned, you experienced, and your dreams shifted. Magdala isn't the same person from the start of this novel to the end of this novel and it felt real and true and I don't find that enough in fiction.
Overall, this book was dark and eerie, but in a lot of ways I also found it hopeful and maybe that wasn't the message in a post apocalyptic dystopian western religious fanaticism novel... but it is how I felt in the end. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves an eerie read, a dystopian read, or book about the dangers inherent in being an outsider in a dangerous world.

#DesertCreatures #NetGalley Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this novel. I encourage you to check this one out! Really solid read.

This was incredibly disturbing, raw, and visceral.
In "Desert Creatures", we follow Magdala in her quest to reach a saint in an attempt to heal her clubfoot. The setting of the book - a future version of the Southwestern United States - is definitely its strongest point. I could feel the desperation for survival as if I myself were in the desert. I could feel the heat, the hunger, and the thirst. The shocking landscape makes for a fitting horror scenario, but it's nothing compared to the humans inhabiting it. Even with desert-stuffed creatures roaming the Remainder, they are still less scary than what other survivors are able to do in order to reach their goals, which makes for a tense reading. It reminded me of the atmosphere in "The Walking Dead."
I really enjoyed the writing style and the concept of Vegas saints, especially when you contrast religious fanaticism to what Las Vegas represents: fun, gambling, neon signs, sexual freedom, etc. I could picture this story as an aesthetically pleasing movie.
Some things that didn't work for me, which made me give this book 3 stars:
- I kept asking myself how society came to be this way and the exact way it is organized. Is there no government anymore? Did an environmental disaster happen? How are the other states? Where do people live? Are they all just roaming the desert? I'm usually a reader who doesn't need a ton of explanations, but I still wanted a little bit of it.
- I enjoyed Magdala as a protagonist, but I didn't care about the secondary characters. They fell a little flat for me, and they kind of resembled each other, especially in their motivations and fears. And as a character-driven reader, this made me not enjoy the book as much as I wanted to.
- I wanted more descriptions of places. It was hard for me to assimilate how the desert, the Western aesthetic, and the post-apocalyptic (and abandoned?) Las Vegas worked together on one single book.

"There are many ways of being in the world now," he said. "We all find one we can endure."

As a new graduate student of Gerontology, I spend a lot of time ruminating on what it means to live one's life well. Is it about what we do? What we overcome? The path we leave for others? All this is to say:

Holy hecking heck. My psyche was not prepared for the whirlwind of existential terror and moral introspection that was Desert Creatures. Part Handmaid's Tale, part post-apocalyptic wasteland, part parable, this book questions what truly makes us human despite the many feral ways society can function. Chronister paints visuals unlike anything I have ever read, which I can only describe as skin-crawling. I loved every minute and will be trying to decode every morsel of what it means for a very long time.

"You will get sick and you will get broken, but you will know you are alive."

DESERT CREATURES by Kay Chronister is a speculative, post-apocalyptic horror novel set in the American southwest. Dead men merge with cacti and Joshua trees, the water is poisonous, and the Catholic Church runs Las Vegas.

We primarily follow Magdala, a young girl with a club foot who is just trying to survive in the wilderness and visit the saint’s bones promised to cure her leg. But the church has made Vegas a corrupt oasis from the horrors that live in the desert.

This is a unique story that is also reminiscent of The Stand by Stephen King (good vs evil, corruption, Las Vegas), and has some intense horror-filled moments. The “stuffed men”, or corpses who have merged with cacti and trees, are eerie and terrifying. However, I wanted more of the horror and lore behind them. We never understand why the landscape is the way it is, and each section felt stunted because of it. If the author had gone deeper into Magdala as a person and what the stuffed men mean to the world as it exists now, I really could have loved this novel.

I recommend this for someone looking for a unique, literary post-apocalyptic novel with light horror elements. For me it was a solid 3⭐️.

Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A desert wasteland, post-apocalyptic-type story full of mystery, body-horror, and a very determined main character, Desert Creatures is a really interesting read. For those who enjoy eco-horror in the same vein as Annihilation and other stories, this book should probably get added to your list. I found this book to be a really intriguing story and an enjoyable read.

AS CAWPILE:
Characters: 6 | Atmosphere: 8 | Writing: 5 | Plot: 2 | Intrigue: 8 | Logic: 2 | Enjoyment: 5
Total: 5.14

Desert Creatures was definitely an interesting read. However, I felt like I spent a majority of my time trying to understand the system and its saints. While the pacing of this book was quick, I would have appreciated slowing down a bit and building the world a bit more, or making more sense of the world that was provided. I want to say I enjoyed this book, but I'm not really sure that I know what I read. The character shifting was disorienting and the time jumping felt confusing. I've read intentionally confusing books before, but this didn't feel like every having an "aha" moment of sense or a moment where I could make my own assumptions about what was going on. There was a lot of groundwork for something fantastic and sci-fi, but the execution fell flat and didn't succeed.

Bleak, weird, resilient… This novel is evocative and beautifully written, leaving me feeling the grit of sand crusting parched lips as it pulled me from page to page. It’s hard to say what this novel is about, as it feels like an elegiac fever dream that may be more prophecy than anything else. There isn’t a lot of plot, which isn’t to say the characters don’t have immediate goals, but rather that they don’t have much choice or agency in those goals, and that’s not really the point of the story. Instead, it is a reflection on character, on suffering and growth, and what kind of decisions we may fall into when logical choice is stripped from us and we are left only with whatever kernels of humanity and heart we have been able to protect in our desiccated flesh.

I want to thank NetGalley and Erewhon Books, who provided a complimentary eARC in exchange for an honest review.

What drew me into reading this was the promise of the eco-surrealism of Vandermeer and the themes of survival by McCarthy. And just look at that cover art! It’s stunning and along with the intriguing blurb, I knew I needed to sink into its pages.

Admittedly though, it was a slow start for me. The book is split into time skipping parts and unfortunately the first part dragged for me and felt extremely long, except for the vivid descriptions of the amazingly unique ecosystem that surrounds the cast and our main character, Magdala. We follow Magdala on her journey to the now holy city of Las Vegas through a unique post-apocalyptic world which has an American ‘Wild West’ feel to it… where it’s every person for themselves and death, while still shocking, is common and an expected of everyday life.

Birth deformities are common in this new world, and Magdala is no exception as she’s been born with a club foot that she wishes to get by the power of the saints that are said to reside in Las Vegas. Religion plays a decently large part of the book, well, a hacked up version of it anyway which helped keep it from becoming a bore.

As stated earlier, my slow start eventually turned into a page turner as the character perspectives switched and I grew more and more enthralled with this magnificent and dangerous world. I craved to learn more about it, I wanted to know why many things were the way they were. I’d be one to drink the desert fruit, probably.

I also wanted to add a quick note about how disability is portrayed in the book, especially as a person of disability. It’s raw, stark and I feel it was very well written by the author. I greatly appreciated the honest brutality that living with a disability can bring.

3.5 stars from me, rounded up to 4. A unique experience and visit to an unpleasant yet absolutely enthralling world.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review!

A book like Desert Creatures is difficult to pin down.

There are parts that have the sparse desperation of a Cormac McCarthy novel, others that match the brutality and then parts where the writing doesn’t feel as sharp and well crafted. It’s perhaps deeply unfair for a writer to compare their work to someone like McCarthy right out of the gate like this, but those are the parallels that exist within the work, so…

Our protagonist is a girl named Magdala who’s stuck traversing the wastelands of the southwestern US after a loosely explained series of incidents ruined everything. In the desert, people and animals are getting desert sick and turning into fluffy trees with fruit that makes anyone who eats it sick. The folks who aren’t that lucky turn into monsters. Las Vegas is the lone holdout for civilization and worships a deceased cowboy.

Through the distinct parts of the book, it follows Magdala through her transformation from a scared girl into survivor badass, although there is a reprieve in the middle following a heretic priest named Elam. We’re forced to see the horrors she endured, then the sacrifices to her own humanity she needed to make to survive. Her redemption is as close as we get to a resolution, and that redemption is loaded with caveats.

There are powerful themes about beliefs, women surviving trauma and what it means to be human. Solid read.

True story, I think that the desert would be the worst place to find oneself in during the apocalypse. It's hot, there's no water, and if you're as pale as me you're definitely dying of sun poisoning. There's illness, and sketchy creatures, and don't forget terrible humans, the biggest bad of all. So, welcome to the absolute hellscape of Desert Creatures!

Seriously, this place is bleak. It's set in what was the American southwest, and Magdala and her dad are heading with some others to Las Vegas, which has been heralded as some sort of saving grace in the middle of this otherwise hostile wasteland. Only, very few people make it more than a few miles in the desert, so Magdala finds herself alone and in some very precarious situations. Over, and over, and over, the poor girl can't seem to catch a break. She holds out a desperate hope that a purported saint in Vegas can miraculously fix her club foot, as it makes it extra difficult to traverse the brutal landscape with it.

Without giving much away, this book sure did an incredible job of delivering on the atmosphere and creating a very bleak look at the world. Sure, there were tiny pockets of hope, but overall, Magdala's situation (and that of everyone else who had survived) seemed quite dire. The book also had a very lonely and desolate vibe, making it perfectly clear how few people were left, at least in this part of the world. Magdala was able to meet some folks along the way, whose stories were fabulous additions. It showed the reader not only how Magdala interacted and formed relationships, but how others were faring in this world.

While I did find the ending a tad underwhelming, I loved reading about Magdala's journey, and the journeys of those she met along the way. I definitely enjoyed the element of survival, especially in such a desolate landscape, and I loved trying to decipher who among the survivors would be able to retain their humanity as the world- and the morality of society in general- collapsed around them.

Bottom Line: Set in a bleak and incredibly atmospheric wasteland, Desert Creatures looks at what exactly makes us human.

Content warning: death of a parent (father), ableism, body horror, misogyny, gun violence, realities of pregnancy, dead baby

Magdala is an eleven-year-old with a club foot, on the run from her settlement with her father across the Sonoran desert, where desert sickness overtakes more organic matter, turning them into horrifying corpse-cactuses. It’s a little bit Annihilation (the movie) and a little bit Red Dead Redemption with a creepy atmosphere and unexpected but delightfully unnerving Christian religious overtones. Where faith in humanity clashes with faith in the divine, it’s a great perambulation through a nightmare scape where everyone kind of sucks, but the supernatural dangers aren’t much better.

Chronister displays a command of both the Western and horror genres in this novel. The dread she builds develops independently from the shadiness of almost every individual Magdala and her father run into. They mesh together so well, building a heady atmosphere that’s bound to leave one as disoriented as the wayward pilgrims in this world. Desert sickness runs amok and, towards the end, even ghostly apparitions make an appearance. No one can be trusted, and the past literally haunts Magdala on her journey. So many horror things in one neat package.

The partitioning of this book is really interesting. We start with Magdala in her childhood, on the run with her father. They meet up with a posse and a series of tragedies and accidents leave her alone again. Then, through the perspective of a priest, we see her fiercely navigate a ruthless society while the priest ruminates on his excommunication and the choices that caused him to be kidnapped by a child. Finally, we have Magdala the adult on a heist to steal saint’s bones. If you like the trope of grizzled mercenary suddenly becomes a parent, this one is a treat. Each part builds on themes that lead before the other, but each contains its own story. In terms of flow, it works well and keep the reader familiar with the themes and dangers established in the section before it.

The prose is clean, and though the action comes in fits and starts, this is definitely a more meditative piece on survival and belief in the divine. Creepy, unnerving, with interesting perspective choices that still afford the central character, Magdala, a ton of agency in a world that would rather her have none.

This was a slow read that had plenty of potential but fell flat for me.

- It was disjointed with random time jumps, no explanation, and different POVs
- The lack of context on the post-apocalyptic world it is set in made the novel feel underdeveloped
- There were many elements in this book that went unexplained. What were these desert creatures? Is there no water? What happened to Vegas?
- The characters lacked depth, which made it hard to like or root for them
- Long chapters that dragged on

I initially requested this arc because the synopsis sounded super cool and I love dystopian novels, but this just wasn’t it for me.

Thank you @netgalley for providing me with this arc for an honest review.