Well, I must say this was a delicious read—pun intended. I was gripped from the beginning and really couldn't stop reading.
The story is great and it's really entertaining, as well as the really memorable set of main characters. They were very likeable and their personalities and relationships were really well developed throughout the book.
The whole pandemic theme is really well executed and felt genuinely realistic, taking advantage, of course, of recent events. The concept of people turning into flesh-eating ghouls is really interesting to begin with, and I really think it manages to reach its full potential with everything it adds to the story.
If you'd like to read a sapphic horror book, you should definitely check this one out.
I’d like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A group of gen Z girls, who are actually ghouls, decide to go to a Coachella-like music festival in the middle of the desert? I was ready to read this immediately, picturing something like Bodies, Bodies, Bodies with zombies... which it kind of turned out to be, but also not really? It's certainly a closer comparison than Jennifer's Body, because it's mostly a mystery, with some murder.

The best parts were the flashbacks to when the main characters during the Hollowing, when they first turned into ghouls. Their individual experiences were all very interesting and tragic, and inform the sort of people they are/became after. I found myself wishing to learn more of the world and the Hollowing and the Hollow, because Cottingham teases us with juicy tidbits - but only just enough so we have some understanding of the world, but still not a full or perfect one. It's like a slice of life post-apocalypse, mid-reconstruction.

Cottingham's prose isn't anything special but is easily readable and paints the picture well. Each character feels like an individual, if a trope, with mostly their own voices. I just couldn't help but keep thinking "this could be fleshed out" or "I'd like to have read more about this" as I zoomed through it. I actually finished this a week ago but quickly forgot all about it until I logged in here and saw I hadn't marked it finished - because it feels like I haven't finished it yet!

I will say that after all we've all been through the last few years, this does feel just a little too real at times lol

First off--this was SUCH a fun read. I'm just getting back into horror after a long time away, and this was the perfect way to dip my toes back in.

Zoey is a Hollow--someone who got sick from the hollow fever two years ago, and now has to eat human flesh--or SynFlesh, the synthetic alternative--to survive. The summer after graduating high school, she and her three Hollow friends attend a music festival, where they quickly realize that something's going on with the Hollows (the ghouls, as they're pejoratively called). They've seen ghouls that looks less than human, and now Valeria, a member of their group, is ravenously hungry. As the festival progresses, they get more and more worried about what's going on.
Meanwhile, Valeria keeps drawing them toward a band she's obsessed with, and Zoey begins to wonder if she might have feelings for Cole, a member of the band, and if she can use those feelings to mask the ones she has for her best friend Celeste, whom she's certain doesn't feel the same way.

This Delicious Death is a fun, fairly cozy horror, and I loved every minute of it. The horror was fun, and I was rooting for Zoey and Celeste to get together the whole time, even while I was intrigued by Cole. If you're looking for a fun, light horror book with a sapphic romance (and a trans love interest) I would definitely recommend This Delicious Death!

You definitely need to suspend a good amount of belief for this one.
Two years ago the Hallowing happened and some people turned into ghouls (semi zombies basically), but here's where I started struggling. Within a couple weeks there is SynFlesh (fake human meat for them to eat), how'd they get that so quickly 😒 conspiracy much. Plus, instead of just killing the ghouls they capture them and put them into facilities, or some go home with their families and there is already literature on how to protect yourself and keep them safe. It all came together WAY too fast for any of it to be believable.
Then at the festival something is happening to some ghouls, making them go feral, but it's all good because within two days the girls have it all sorted and it's not a big deal.
While the concept was great, the execution left me wanting more. We never learn what caused the Hollowing in the first place, and we just have to accept that everyone was super cool about it and just moved on with their lives.
Flagging this as horror also doesn't seem accurate, but I suppose horror is subjective.
2.5 rounded down.

The quick cut: Four ghoul girls go to a music festival together before graduation and end up in the middle of a plot against all ghouls. Drama ensues.

A real review:
Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for providing the arc for an honest review.

Can you imagine a world where monsters are real? In this young adult book, they're real and being threatened in a story centered around four teen girls attending a music festival.

Three years ago, the permafrost melted and released an unknown pathogen, which turned a part of the population into ghouls. Called Hollow, these ghouls are required to be registered and report when they feed on synthetic meat to keep them from turning on the remaining human population. Now, four girls are going to the Desert Bloom music festival before high school graduation. What should be a good time turns into an awful one when one of them turns feral and kills one of the band members. Soon, they discover other people disappearing. Why are there ghouls turning on others and how can they stop it?

I love a good horror story and when I saw this arc, I definitely wanted to read it. The concept is interesting and seems to blend fantasy with reality in a unique way. While the concept is interesting, the execution was different than I expected. For sure I wouldn't call this a horror story either. I would call this closer to a contemporary story with horror and mystery elements blended in.

There are four characters we follow the closest: Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine. All of them became Hollow and had their own struggles when the incident that made them that way occurred. While each of them do have moments of individualism, for the most part they were hard to keep separate in my mind. I wish their personalities were a bit more unique so that was easier to do.

The storyline is an interesting one, but I can't help but feel lied to based on the books description. Horror stories get your blood pumping and put a chill down your spine. This story didn't do any of those things and more often than not made me chuckle. For sure the rating for this book would be higher if the comedic side came through stronger in the description.

A contemporary story with horror monsters included.

My rating: 3.75 out of 5

Queer, diverse, friends-to-lovers zombies at a music festival in the desert. Honestly, how could I not give it 5 stars? It has absolutely everything. Just your typical fun, flesh-eating romp. I was hooked after the first chapter. I loved all of the characters. I’m not even sure how a sequel would happen but I wish there would be one because I would read 20 books with this cast.

Dare I say this is my favorite book of the year? Bc I’m completely obsessed!!!!

I loved Kayla cottingham’s first book. So when I saw the next book (& the stunning cover) I knew I needed to read it. Zombies? Not usually a fan but in this case, I’m living for them! This felt like izombie meets scooby doo meets Coachella. The drama, the action, the friends to lovers? Could this be anymore perfect for me! 🥰

I loved how we got little pieces of the Hallowing introduced in every chapter. I liked how the backstory of how the girls ended up being Hallow was mixed in instead of doing flashbacks or a past/present situation. This made it fun and only really presented the need to know info on their backstory.

This friend group was everything! They all are there for each other no matter what. Accidentally killed a boy? That’s fine we’ll all eat him & get rid of the body. Turn into a 7 foot tall hideous monster? No prob girl we gotchu! I wanna be their friend so bad! Also the slow burn messy relationship with mutual pinning was perfection!

I could go on and on about the things I loved in this book but I will just leave it as it’s my favorite book of the year and I will read whatever Kayla Cottingham does next!

PS: this would be a fantastic tv show/mini series, just saying 🤷🏻‍♀️

The event was called the Hollowing, some pathogen that had been frozen and kept in check in the arctic permafrost. When it got released into the atmosphere some people fell prey to it, becoming ‘zombies’ or rather ghouls. Unable to process regular food they needed flesh to maintain control least they become feral beasts. Science found a way to help, creating lab grown synthetic organs (SynFlesh) able to act as a substitute for actual flesh. That was years ago and now things are somewhat back to ‘normal’, though the government of course tracks and keeps tabs of those ‘infected’.

It was supposed to be a fun getaway, a last hurrah for a group of friends before graduation, before embarking on the next phase of their lives. Car packed (including a cooler full of SynFlesh organs of course) and ready for a road trip to a music festival. Things seemed great at first (don’t they always, lol) then one of them goes feral and chaos ensues. Why did Val go feral? Will it happen again? What’s really going on? This was a surprisingly fresh take on the ‘zombie’ genre. Yes, there is an underlying LGBT storyline and perhaps I was meant to grasp some deeper meaning from that aspect of the story, but I’ll be honest I was mostly there for the flesh eating ghoul aspect of the story, lol, and in that I was not disappointed. I’ve read so many books in the ‘zombie’ genre over the years that I really appreciate when someone brings something new and fresh to the table. Thanks so much to SOURCEBOOKS Fire and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of This Delicious Death.

🇹 🇭 🇮 🇸
🇩 🇪 🇱 🇨 🇮 🇴 🇺 🇸
🇩 🇪 🇦 🇹 🇭
-Kꭺyꮮꭺ Ꮯꮎꭲꭲꮖnꮹꮋꭺꮇ-

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

Release Date: April 25, 2023

ᴴᴼᴿᴿᴼᴿ/ᴸᴳᴮᵀᵟᴵᴬᴾ+/ᵀᴱᴱᴺˢ&ᵞᴬ

This book has everything a post pandemic world needs for a good time:
- 4 besties on a road trip
- A music festival that is Fyre Fest meets Coachella
- A new meat substitute
- A love story

This was a fun read. It’s a very unique twist of (not so scary) horror, friendship and a bit of love. Things get moving pretty quickly and the pace keeps moving until the end. It was an enjoyable read with a few twists and turns, that were not quite what I was expecting. Where the book lost me was it didn’t hit the horror mark for me. It was more like a YA love story drank a horror Lacroix. The elements were there but it didn’t quite hit it.


Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for this advanced copy for review.

I’ve been in an apocalyptic kick lately so was intrigued to learn of a “virus” type story. I enjoyed this twist on zombies so that it was “ghouls” instead of typical zombies. I wish there would’ve been more “during the Hollowing” and what caused it. Idk it just felt like only randomly people were catching it or only some people were recovering. It was a little unclear.

I can honestly say this book is so different from anything I have read so far, and all in a good way. A few years ago something unknown airborne virus has spread, and people had to quarantine for a few weeks, this was called The Hollowing, the people who got sick from this slowly couldn’t eat regular food, they were turning into flesh eating creatures. They looked like themselves, regular people, but completely different when they were eating what scientists created “SynFlesh” which is a synthetic flesh that smells and tasted like real body parts (this was wild!!!)

It’s the girls last year in high school and since the hollowing they haven’t really gone out like that. There is a music festival they want to go to, and I knew this was going to be one wild ride. That weekend something is happening with the other Ghouls and they are turning Feral, meaning they are attacking regular people and even themselves, what the hell is going in?!!! Not only are one of the girls already in trouble, someone is targeting them as a whole. Secrets are revealed, lives are saved, some were not, we get a back story from each of the characters while they were transforming, which was so sad. And then we get some trans-representation, the cutest romance between two best friends, I couldn’t put the book down, it was pretty graphic, and my imagination was at a 1,000 with this book.

Thanks NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I had a fun time with this book. I really enjoyed the mystery and the romance aspect of it. I liked the flashbacks of the beginning of the chapters to show where they were when the hollowing started, it gave good insight into the characters

I received an arc through netgalley

“I remember once seeing a piece of art that said the people you love become ghosts inside you. What I realized now was that it was true of the people you killed, too.”

Nothing is the same after the Hollowing. The virus starts like a stomach bug but quickly turns into something more sinister. With high school graduation around the corner, Zoey and her best friends Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine—who were brought together by their shared Hollowed transformation—embark on their first road trip since the outbreak to Desert Bloom, an indie music festival in the Mojave Desert. Things get even more complicated than just managing their hunger with lab-grown SynFlesh tissue when Zoey realizes she has feelings for Celeste and even more so when Valeria unexpectedly goes feral and eats her new crush’s bandmate. Can Zoey and crew figure out what is causing the influx of savage behavior among the Hollows before everyone is harmed and admit her feelings along the way?

I had no idea what to expect from This Delicious Death, but I was intrigued by the teaser of best friends attending a music festival with a cooler of human organs. I really wanted to like this young adult horror read, but it ultimately missed the mark. A major component of the novel was the evolving group dynamics between Zoey and her friends as their circumstances transformed from bad to worse. While I appreciate how tight-knit the friends were, many of their interactions seem completely unrealistic. One minute they are cuddling, the next they are accusing each other of having romantic feelings for one another and then leaving each other to defend themselves alone in the woods. This lack of cohesion made for a difficult read, especially considering I did not feel any romantic tension between the characters. I was also confused why the group would choose to attend an exclusive indie band festival when they spend the duration making fun of the music quality. The cannibalism element was handled thoughtfully, but some references to the Hollowing may be upsetting to readers, considering COVID-19 lockdown similarities. The best part of the novel was when each character’s unique Hollowing flashback memories were slowly revealed throughout. However, the main plot was essentially a group of friends running around a festival they do not seem to want to be at, dodging their feelings, and unrealistically saving the day despite being entirely inept.

I recommend This Delicious Death for the positive, inclusive LGBTQ+ representation and to those interested in semi-post-apocalyptic circumstances who do not mind a little gore at the expense of a realistic plot.

This book will probably upset certain audiences. However, I thought it was fantastic.

A plague has spread across the world in a period known as "The Hollowing." The afflicted developed a taste for human flesh and literally cannot stomach regular food. At first, the Hollow were segregated and locked up until the treatment of SynFlesh (TM) was developed to help them not eat other people. In the first major event since the Hollowing, four friends who are Hollow attend a concert out of town in the middle of the desert. They bring plenty of SynFlesh to sate their cravings. Except someone at the festival is slipping Hollows a substance that makes them go feral. When it happens to one of the girls, her friends rally to find out who is responsible and how to fix it.

This is really just a charming friendship story that happens to feature cannibalism. I thought the author handled the subject with good humor and tongue firmly in cheek. I found the overall story fresh and different and enjoyed the mystery of the whole book. I would definitely seek out this author's first book.

As I said, some audiences may find this subject matter uncomfortable and there is a table of possible triggers in the front of the book.

A fun blood filled, gay horror story with a heart.
Four friends who are all ghouls go to a desert music festival only to find unexpected devilish players to contend with as well as two finding a budding relationship. This is a very fast and easy read perfect for the YA enthusiasts. A good, funny, and campy ride from start to finish. There's even a bit of thrilling action to keep the blood pumping. A perfect diversion to enjoy at the beach or in a library.

The ghoul romance and mystery that I didn’t know I needed in my life. The characters were delightful and I wanted to go with them to the big festival until things started to go horribly wrong (at which point I’d have been hiding under a blanket in the cabin). I’d love to read more adventures of the ghoul friends. Funny, a little bit scary and an all around great read!

I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. I read this book so fast and was pleasantly surprised about how engaging and different it was. A little bit of horror, a little bit of queer romance, and humor. Chef's kiss to this book.

This Delicious Death had real potential. They could have done so much more with The Hallowing. Instead, this is a shallow attempt to gross you out. There is no horror or thrill. No scares. No real mystery. C’mon, we all can see what is coming a mile away. Why ruin such a good idea?

This author has always been my saving Grace when it comes to positive horror LGBTQ+ narratives. While campy at times, most of the characters are enjoyable and relatable (even if they do consume human flesh)

A bloody good time! This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham is a fun pandemic LGBTQIAP+ young adult horror novel that I really enjoyed. Zoey, Celeste, Valeria and Jasmine are super excited to take their first road trip from their small town of Aspen Flats to Desert Bloom music festival. Their pandemic, The Hollowing, happened when a portion of the population became infected and discovered their hunger for human flesh and internal body organs. Thankfully SynFlesh was developed so instead of killing innocents, these ghouls get to log all their meals on the HollowLife app. Something strange happens in the desert and these girls begin to crave a fresh flesh meal. Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the ARC.