After a pandemic turns certain people into flesh eating "Hollows", the government comes up with a synthetic flesh to appease their hunger and keep everyone living in harmony. When a group of friends take a road trip to a music festival they soon discover that someone is purposely trying to make Hollows turn feral.

This YA novel sucked me in immediately. Kayla Cottingham does a fantastic job of mixing horror with comedy. Somehow she makes zombies and cannibal ghouls funny?? The diverse representation was excellent and very much appreciated. Truly a book for all. Such a fun read!!!

A fun, bloody romp! The setting was really unique, I think I younger crowd might vibe with it a little more but it was still a great time.

This was an escape for sure! This is modern day zombies with a fun twist.

I am really enjoying Kayla Cottingham’s writing. I think this book was super fun to read. I love the friend group dynamic and the intensity of Zoey’s feelings. I found myself invested in her unrequited love for her bestie, even when she tries to deny it by finding someone else to get caught up in.

Blame climate change!
In the world of this book, a pathogen was released creating a major change in some of the world’s population. They call it The Hollowing… years later, Zoey and her three besties are “ghouls” now, needing human flesh to sustain them… well now synthetic flesh, of course. This substitution is what allows them to be a part of society.

When they travel together to a music festival, things go horribly wrong. One of the group does, in fact, go feral, killing someone. And when more people start to go missing, it’s a race against the clock for Zoey to figure out how to keep her friends safe.

I will admit that I could see from chapter 3 where this was going to go, but it in no way hindered my enjoyment because I was so invested in the characters and the story.

4.5 ⭐️
This gave me nightmares in a good way.

Zoey and her four friends are heading to a concert in the desert. It’s been their first weekend away since being turned into ghouls.

This book kept me on my toes the most of the book. The first few chapters were a little slow but once it picked up, it went!! I could not put it down. I needed to finish the book.

This is a YA Horror book so it isn’t too gruesome but it still went really good with the book. There are parts that I could picture so perfectly with the authors details.

This is a great book with great representation for the LGBTQIA+. There is a full list of Trigger Warnings (2 1/2 pages) in the front of the book. This author thought of everything that might be a trigger warning for someone.

I will definitely be reading Kayla’s back library and future books.

Publish date: April 25, 2023 ❤️

This was not my typical read but I LOVED it. YA/Teen Fantasy meets Zombie Apocalypse.

“When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.”

I loved the representation of LGBTQ+ characters. I loved the wittiness, the gory details, the fact that it was set at a music festival in the middle of the desert (I’ve always wanted to go to Cochella lol), but most of all the best friends to lovers ending. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read and review!

This book was one of my most anticipated reads of 2023. A book about zombies? Yes please. I loved this book and would definitely recommend it to my kids and friends who enjoy ya books. I was very excited to receive an e-arc copy from netgalley for my honest review.

3.5 rounded up due to originality. This was a fun, somewhat campy, YA horror with a ton of representation. I love a fleshed out (ha! Pun intended) post-apocalyptic world and I feel like the author did a great job weaving the Hollowing into the story that’s more about friendship and acceptance than cannibalism. There isn’t too much detail abt the epidemic, so therefore no obvious plot holes. I saw another reviewer say they would have liked more Santa Clarita Diet vibes, but now that I’m done I can say it was definitely giving iZombie, especially towards the end. It’s a fast paced, quick read. And I loved the epigraphs (because who isn’t a fan of a buzzfeed list?) and backstories at the start of the chapters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy and a chance to read this early. All opinions are my own.

Kayla Cottingham's LGBT+ horror thriller delivers camp, queer love and a good ol' whodunit. Told in multiple timelines, THIS DELICIOUS DEATH explores the impact of the Hollowing on four teens. The Hollowing was a climate event that led to some people becoming zombie-like and needing to feed on flesh to stay human. Luckily, there's SynFlesh and a government agency to keep track of those impacted by the Hollowing.

Now clear for travel, Zoey, Celeste, Valeria and Jasmine take a road trip to a popular music festival to celebrate their senior year. They're stocked up on SynFlesh and ready for fun, but their adventure quickly turns to a nightmare when healthy, well-fed ghouls start turning feral.

THIS DELICIOUS DEATH uses the fictional disease to explore the stigma, the power of acceptance (or rejection), and found family surrounding queerness. The message is clear - we can't change who we are whether that's Hollowed or queer, and we deserve to exist, to love, to thrive in this world. Recommended for high school and public libraries.

This book surprised the heck out of me. For a story dealing with cannibalistic ghouls running amok during a Coachella like music festival, it surprisingly has a lot to say.

The Hollowing is an event where many became sick and turned into "ghouls" (I pictured a cross between Blanka from Street Fighter 2 and Ryuk from Death Note) who can only eat human flesh. If they don't, they turn feral. Years after, the world has adjusted and thanks to "SynFlesh" those afflicted can lead normal lives. For four friends (Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine), all ghouls themselves, they head out to a desert music festival with a cooler full of synflesh and plans to live a little, having just graduated from high school. Only, once they get there one of their own becomes feral and infected by something that threatens to kickstart The Hollowing 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Kayla Cottingham uses the events in this book to explore our current times in surprising ways. Themes of acceptance, belonging, living in pandemic times, friendships, and family are all explored with depth and grace. The acceptance (or non-acceptance) by others of those they know who have turned into ghouls is used effectively to mirror our own times, especially with regards to those in the LGBTQI and Trans communities. The goodness of our four main characters acts as a stark contrast to the hate they encounter around the . They are steadfast in their love for each other and for being strong in a world that isn't so welcoming of them, despite of their "acceptance."

This book goes big and bold. It's way more out there and outlandish then I thought it would be. I really enjoyed the adventure. Also, for being YA it's very gory and violent. This is definitely a full on horror novel. All in all, I was really delighted and had a lot of fun reading this.

Special thanks to SOURCEBOOKS Fire, @sourcebooksfire, and Netgalley, @netgalley, for this e-arc in exchange for the honest review.

Loved the premise of this and the characters were great! The queer representation was excellent. I do think the ending wrapped up a little too quickly and would have loved to have seen it fleshed out (no pun intended 😂) a little more! Overall a good read!

*Thank you so much to @netgalley / @sourcebooksfire / @kcottcan for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review*

First, this cover is fantastic.

This YA Sapphic Horror was FUN. Is that weird to say about a horror? And the queer rep was 🤌🤌🤌

And we get to eat annoying boys for dinner? SOLD.

I loved that we got a glimpse of the past for each person, that we got to see the impact the disease had on their lives. I almost wish I had a prequel? I'd love more on that whole shebang. As well as just more of these girls!

This is a first for me from this author, I'd definitely love to go find more! And this would totally make a fun movie. Who do I call about that? 🤳

Being a ghoul is tough. Being a ghoul who’s best friend went feral and ate a boy, is even tougher.

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham is the campy thriller I’ve been waiting for! It was a faced paced read, with the perfect mix of humor and gore. There was such great representation of characters in the book, and it was easy to get attached to them, and feel what they went through during the Hollowing. I really enjoyed this book, and it’s definitely one for the personal library.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for a copy of this eARC!

I was super excited for this book when I read the summary, and I was not disappointed!

The perfect blend of camp, romance, thrills, and humor, This Delicious Death drew me in and kept me absolutely 'devouring' every page.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the ARC!

This Delicious Death was truly a blast from start to finish. The Hallowing is and exciting idea for why the zombie/ghoul outbreak would occur and I hope that there are more books in the series.

A few years before the start of the story an outbreak occurs, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral. Nowadays, after synthetic organs (SynFlesh) are made and ghouls (those who underwent the Hollowing) are tracked, they can live a somewhat normal life.

Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls attending a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral.

This was such a fun, silly, cannibalistic read! The strong friendships and love between the girls, the humor in an intensely wild situation, the mystery of who could possibly be drugging ghouls; gore, pining, and strong representation - there's a little bit of everything packed into a short but well paced and fun read.

I should have know by the 2 pages of trigger warnings that this book would not be for me- I'm too old for it. I didn't care about any of the characters and DNF'd the book at about 60%. Maybe if I was in my teens or 20's I would have cared more.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this title!

I was really into the premise of this, and I found it really interesting in the beginning. I liked the setup and the characters that the story was setting up, and I also really enjoyed the little bits of history and lore that were sprinkled in at the beginnings of the chapters.

Unfortunately, for me the book overall ended up being just okay. I was really excited to read it but towards the end found myself skimming more than reading because I wanted to be done. It felt like this plot and idea had SO much potential but it didn't really go anywhere very interesting, in my opinion.

It also felt all over the place tonally. There were moments when it was supposed to be tense or suspenseful and it would be broken immediately by out of place banter or flirting and it felt kind of like it didn't know what it wanted to be doing.

It didn't quite hit the mark for me, but I can definitely see teens being really into this (I will definitely be able to pitch this with "sapphic" "ghouls" "cannibalism" "trans girl love interest" with no problem at all), and that's great, since it's written for teens!

This is unlike any story I have read before and I loved every moment of it! It had everything I love in a story and more! It was fun to read and kept me guessing until the end.

This Delicious Death
by Kayla Cottingham
YA Fantasy Zombie
NetGalley ARC


Zoey and her three friends are ghouls, four of the small percentage of people who were transformed three years ago during what is called the Hollowing, into human flesh-eating monsters, but if they eat the synthetic version of human flesh the scientists created regularly, they are able to mingle with humans without tearing off a snack.

The summer after their high school graduation, the four friends go out into the desert for a musical festival, but that first night one of the friends kills and eats a boy. Come morning they find out that that boy wasn't the only one who disappeared. Realizing that if they don't figure out what is making the ghouls go feral, no one at the festival may get out alive.

It's not a bad story, true to life as it can be with zombies, (ghouls), and the teenage girls all had different personalities, and sometimes blur together along the edges as best friends often do. But the minor characters, including the boys who caught their interest, weren't as well developed, instead lumped together into the typical troupe of young rock stardom-dreaming males. Of the four boys, only two seemed a little different, though a third sticks out for another reason.

But my main issue was the short time frame of a few months for the synthetic meat to be created and for the non-affected humans to accept and welcome back those who became ghouls, who killed and ate other humans, including family members. For some reason, I feel that it should've been a lot longer before they were accepted back. And the book's title really doesn't fit the story very well.

The only thing questionable is teenage drinking, but I think readers as young as twelve would enjoy this story, as there's no descriptive sex or violence.

3 Stars

Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book at 38%. I really wanted to enjoy it, but the pacing was too slow for me. This may also be a me problem, but I was having a hard time suspending my beliefs to allow me to grasp the plot. I just kept finding plotholes and no amount of sapphic side plot was going to keep me engaged.