3 years ago a virus was released from the permafrost. It randomly changed people so they could only live and tolerate human flesh. Now a few years later 4 friends who went through this change are now going to the first music festival after what is referred to as the Hollowing event has occurred. They end up meeting up with a band known as No Flash Photography. After one of the girls accidentally attacks and eats a boy the friends are trying to solve the mystery as why this happened.
IAll these characters are 18 years and older at the time of the events that are occurring. While we do get flashbacks of the events of the days that they turned, I found that this book did keep my attention. I was interested in the story and to learn more of why the events happening were happening. This is a YA Horror book that is heavy with the LGTBQIA+. I did really enjoy it but I did not find this scary whatsoever. It might be because it is YA. Maybe if this was a movie I would find it more frightening or scary because of the jumps but even adult horror half the time doesn’t get me as scared as movies do. Overall I did enjoy it and would recommend giving it a read. I will be reading more from Kayla Cottingham in the future!

The sophomore novel to Kayla Cottingham was as strong as ever. To think I almost passed up My Dearest Darkest. The story is under the bad b*tch genre. I'm a little concerned about the possibility of a flu causing us to become flesh eating monster but that's a phobia for a different day. All jokes aside it was fabulous and quick. Kayla is very creative.

I don't have much to say about this one but I had a fun time while reading. The characters were great, I appreciated the inclusivity. The horror was horrific (at least by my own personal tolerance scale. A lot of body horror which is not my thing) and the ending was satisfying. It's a YA novel so it didn't get as dark and gritty as I might usually prefer with my horror but I didn't mind it all that much this time. I can't wait to read Kayla's debut novel which is still staring at me on my TBR shelf. If you like the idea of a different twist on zombies, I'd recommend this read.

I loved it.

This is such a fun book, i loved the concept, big medical disaster worldwide suddenly people are ghouls, four girls going to a music festival chaos happens, it was so good.

The characters in this are what really make it, I loved everyone, Zoey Celeste, Jasmine & Valeria were so much fun and it was also such a good friend group, girls you would want to be friends with if you had to eat human flesh to survive.

There’s a mystery, people die and the girls have to save themselves and everyone else along the way and the way is so much fun. You mainly see the book from Zoey’s point of view but you also get to see what happens to a lot of the main characters during the events of the Hollowing that turned some people into ghouls. Also a super cute very sweet romance as a side plot that I was probably too invested in.

Flat out loved it, would read again, and kinda hoping it becomes a series.

After surviving a pandemic Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are ready to go to a music festival, they have no idea someone is going to set them up. The group of best friends survived a pandemic (The Hollowing) that turned them into zombies! They're not alone though, because a good portion of the population is with them. Thanks to SynFlesh they are able to resume their activities as normal and that means they are going to a music festival.

This book was definitely good for a young adult story. I think this is mostly about friendships and surviving. It's weird to think about there being "others" so to speak, but Kayla Cottingham has definitely done a great job at doing that. I did think the beginning moved a bit slowly, but it did pick up.

Four friends contract a pathogen that turns them into ghouls during the Hallowing. Fortunately for them, the government has found a way for ghouls to coexist with humans using fake meat called Synflesh. The gang sets out to attend a music festival where they plan to get the entirety of their lives. Little do they know they are about to be in for the ride of their lives. The Delicious Death is a novel about unbreakable friendship and resiliency. The author gave us friendship, budding love, betrayal, boy bands, and a little spicy horror amazingly written all together. I love a good apocalyptic story and this one does not disappoint.

Thank you to Netgalley, SOURCEBOOKS fire and Kayla Cottingham for an eARC.


Honestly it was giving me Coachella meets Lollapalooza but zombie Apocalyse edition.

My brain was picturing the movie already. Somehow.
My brain was also like omg Covid it was Covid that turned them into the flesh eating monsters.

“What do you owe a friend When your heart is still beating And they’ve reached the end? Skin turned to dust, I’ll lay you to sleep Baby, I promise, I’ll bury you deep.”

great book and such great characters. I enjoyed the mystery and some romance. I also enjoyed the journey of the characters. I didn't know what to expect with this book but I enjoyed it .

Let me preface this by saying that I really enjoyed this book overall. However, I found the beginning to be a little too much of someone telling me and not showing me. It seemed more like the introduction to a middle grade book than YA for the first chapter or so. After that got out of the way, though, I really enjoyed my time reading the book. While the virus and symptoms that make people basically zombies makes absolutely no sense on any level, I am not one of those that have a problem with suspending my disbelief to enjoy myself and go along with the story. While I'm super glad to see more LGBTQ representation in literature and learn something new (I had never heard of deadnaming before), the way the gender identity, sexual preferences, and even race was announced (again, telling, not showing), made it feel a little like "how can I make this book as inclusive as possible and not leave any minority out?" rather than bringing me a believable cast of characters who all happen to be friends. Maybe times have changed a lot in the last 10 years, or maybe it's just because they are on the West Coast, but I would have found it hard to have found so many friends in high school who all happened to be ethnically diverse, gay, bi, trans, and also who just happen to also be part of what seems to be a minority of people who are zombies. The reason some but not all were affected by the virus leaves me wondering if only the LGBT community were susceptible to the virus, which I hope is an unintentional parallel to how people assumed AIDS was a "gay virus". Yes, I realize saying this makes it sound like I hated the book - I really didn't. I just think it would be a disservice to the author and those who worked to publish this book not to bring their attention to these observations. I also don't typically like anything zombie related, but I was entertained by the mystery and committed to seeing the resolution, which was wrapped up nicely at the end.

Review date: March 18, 2023
Release date: April, 25, 2023

This is a cute, YA horror. You get a little bit of everything - horror (a little gore at times), friendship, mystery and romance. It was easy to read and all four characters are likeable and easy to relate to.
The beginning was a little slow but if you can get through that the rest of the story is fast paced and engaging. I liked the flashbacks to the past for each character as you get a little bit of insight of what happened before the “pandemic”.
Overall great YA horror.

Thank you NetGalley, Sourcebooks Fire and the author for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

It’s a godforsaken bloodbath!

“This delicious death” is the second book by Kayla Cottingham and it’s a ghoulish ride. It stars four ghouls…… Or characters who were affected by The Hollowing three years ago. A event that caused a small portion of folks to be transformed to flesh eating ghouls. Weird, isn’t that just how kids really are these days? Anyway, rather then just have ghouls running around killing everyone a synthetic flesh food for them to eat was invented for them to eat and life returned to normal. Kinda.

Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are the four ghouls living in Southern California. They are also good friends and are travelling with each other to a music festival (Coachella it seems like) They are having a great time listening to music and not killing anyone when someone tampers with the food and causes ghouls to go feral. Next thing you know Valeria turns up missing and they find her killing a boy and eating him.

My kind of book!

This book is very well written and has a lot of meat on the bones. No pun intended! It’s written in the form of flashbacks by the main characters and we get inside their lives, how they turned into ghouls, and living in a LGBT world. You really felt for them…. Even when they go on flesh eating killing sprees. It’s a great bloody and violent book! Definitely YA but lots of gore.

Highly recommended!

I really appreciate SOURCEBOOKS Fire for giving me the opportunity to read this book in advance for a fair review and it has a publication date of April 25, 2023.

<i>The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Four best friends with a hunger for human flash attend a musical festival, what was supposed to be a fun thing in the desert became a gory plot against them.
I saw this book in a list of upcoming horror novels for 2023 and when I read the sinopse I just thot that this was something new to me. The hole plot of they being ghouls and some starting to becoming something else in a place full of humans and other ghouls with music involved sounds cool.
Honestly when I finished the book I though this was a enjoyable 3,5 stars reading, with a good friends to lovers but the ending plot was underwhelming and could be better to me.

I liked the writing and felt that the pacing was fluid and worked with the whole scenario of a festival in the desert.
Something that I found frustrating was how fast the important things where.

The main characters are Zoey, Celeste, Valeria and Jasmine are ghouls (or hallow girls) that are living in Southern California and go to the festival together.
The friends for lovers romance was chefs kiss and I loved it.

The flashback to the past of what happened in the hollow and what the girls in the moments that they where transforming was interesting but the whole thing of the timeline of “acceptance” was too fast to me.

For a horror novel I found this book to be cute. I don't usually read YA, so maybe that's why. I did enjoy the "monsters" as well as the romance. The main character is bisexual, which I appreciate. This is a nice read if you're taking a break from heavier horror or if you like lighter stuff in general.

Quote:
"You do not have time for this right now," I reminded myself. "You can go back to being a bisexual disaster when people aren't being drugged and turned into monsters."

Relatable

This has me hooked from the very beginning. Absolutely loved this story! Will definitely be purchasing.

This was a fun and quick read! The core four girls were written with care and their dynamic as a group and separately worked well with the story. It was a nice touch of social commentary about being “other” in a crowd and having to hide it from even those who say they love you no matter what.

The horror imagery was okay for a YA novel. The gore elements were not tempered at all, so that was fun reading! It had some nicely plotted moments of mystery and suspense while the girls investigated the festival trying to save their friend from impending doom. I was not expecting to have queer romance and many forms of LGBT+ representation in a story like this, but it was incorporated beautifully!

Overall, it was a fun read! It's nothing groundbreaking in the horror genre, but it succeeds in telling the story it set out to tell. I enjoyed the author's voice in the moments with the flashbacks of the girls during the Hollowing, and the dynamic between their friendship.

I would also say beware of trigger warnings going into this book! There’s a lot!

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

One music festival, one cooler full of… human organs? This book was so interesting. An unknown pathogen caused people to transform. They called it the Hollowing. These people slowly became intolerant to food and now must eat human flesh.

I loved the concept of this book. The characters were well rounded and had a strong friendship. The details pertaining to the virus and the synthetic products made was very interesting. I definitely would have enjoyed this in my YA years.

All in all, a fun and interesting read!

Influencers, and rockstars, and ghouls, Oh My!

This was so much fun! Sure, a bit gory, but also comedy, romance, action.

Not my usual read, but I LOVED it!!!!

This book is refreshingly different, creepy, twisty, and fun all at the same time. I agree with other reviewers that said this was a surprise, and that for such a quirky book, there was a lot of meat on the bone (pardon the pun!)

Living in a post-covid world, the concept of a pathogen of unknown origin leading to "the Hollowing," took me to a world I couldn't have fathomed back in 2020. While the concept is crazy, it's not so far-fetched after what we have recently lived through. Thankfully we aren't eating people at this point, although we are a bit more anti-social and just plain mean these days as a whole.

Queue the "B" horror movie vibes, with "ghouls" running around as teenagers take over a music festival in the desert, and chaos ensues. Fun to the end, I enjoyed the messaging, the zombies, and the escape from reality. Good times.

Thank you to Kayla Cottingham, Sourcebooks Fire, and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review. I had a blast!

I devoured (no pun intended) this book in less than 24 hours.
The premise excited me and was quite unique from other books I've read. It was fast paced, the characters were relatable. There was horror, gore, mystery, and even romance and it all intertwined so well. I loved the flashbacks interspersed throughout, because they built up the world and the history of our characters so well. Sometimes I feel like flashbacks can be unnecessary and detract from the present, but this was not one of those times.

My only complaint would be the use of sexuality/gender as descriptions. Characters were introduced in ways like "the genderfluid goalie" or the "bisexual photographer". It made these characters come off as token representation rather than meaningful inclusion. I felt it could have been handled a bit differently. But overall, it seems the gender and sexual representation of the main characters was handled smoothly.

In total, this book is a fun, fast read and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone with a penchant for gory mysteries.

4.5/5 ⭐️
A few years ago, the world went through what became known as the Hollowing where many people turned essentially into ghouls. The issue was solved with synthetic flesh and Zoey and her friends live mostly normal lives now. However, things take a turn when they go to a music festival and their friend Val starts to go feral. Zoey and her three other friends must uncover what or who caused this to happen before it’s too late for Val.

I really enjoyed this! It was a unique take on horror esque themes instead of the traditional zombie trope. I loved the flashback intros to the chapters to give context, and Zoey was a great heroine. It had a little spookiness to it but not enough I think it’d turn people away who don’t like that. Def recommend!

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.