This was so fun! I loved the characters and the idea of the virus itself. Even though the idea of a virus changing people isn't new, I think this was still a very originally done story. I loved how we learned about the Hollowing - not through an info dump at the beginning, but through little bits along the way.
If you enjoyed this authors first book, you will definitely enjoy this one.

I really enjoyed this book! I wish it was a series instead of just ending, because I really was rooting for some of the characters. The author mentioned the band Blue October several times in the beginning of the book, which is a real band. But didn’t circle back and talk about them at the end of the book? And ending was predictable but cute.

This was an excellent read with a great twist on the plague story. That it didn’t follow the typical “zombie apocalypse” storyline. But the ending is where it lost it for me personally. I won’t elaborate so I don’t spoil anything for anyone but it was a super original concept with a kind of predictable ending.

Well this was unexpected! And I loved it! Dark, gory, funny, romantic, and thrilling! I wasn't expecting it to be such a mashup of genres and truly didn't think all of this could work together but it DOES and that's proven with This Delicious Death! Don't miss this one!

The idea of this book was a lot of fun. It was a medium paced story that will appeal to many YA readers. I really like the LGBTQIA+ representation and the social commentary in the story. For the most part, the way the girls talked and interacted with one another was believable. However, the author's use of "anthropophagi" and the like was very disruptive to the overall experience of reading as it often pulled the reader from the universe Cottingham created and plunged them back into reality. It is admittedly not a word I knew (or others I asked) and it was difficult to pronounce. Had it been used perhaps once or twice when the girls first learn it or possibly if it had been written with them trying to sound it out or figure out what it meant it may have been more palatable. But as is, it took away from the reading experience, especially since it was used a lot.

Additionally, the ending, particularly the epilogue, was long and could have benefitted from some of that being cut out. It got a bit cheesy.

This book was so fun to read! I also really appreciate all the content warnings in the very front. I would definitely recommend this to customers but I would recommend it to the older side of YA rather than the 13-16 age.

Such a cute end of the world zombie-ish apocalypse story. There is horror, romance, and mystery. It's the perfect combination of horror and romance combined. Loved that this was a different take on a zombie disease and the mystery of a new strand effecting those who have contracted the disease.

Thank you to #NetGalley #SourcebooksFire and #KaylaCottingham for #ARC of #ThisDeliciousDeath.
A YA book that has it all, love, romance, LGBTQIA+, flesh eating monsters, solidarity of friendship, and sabotage. What else could a person ask for??! Although I am not the intended target for this book, I did enjoy the themes going through it. What really struck me throughout the book was the level of casual daily misogyny the 4 female leads put up with, but they still had an extremely 'kick ass' attitude.
Thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I found it hard to stop reading. The need was great to find out what happened next, and I will be searching out this author for more books like this.

Despite the triggering post-pandemic setting, "This Delicious Death" is one of the most satisfying zombie novels I've had the pleasure of sinking my teeth into.

Pun intended.

After devouring "My Dearest, Darkest" in a single sitting, I had unrealistically high expectations for Cottingham's sophomore release. And I'm happy to say that those expectations were met, and in many ways, exceeded.

The effortless pacing and thoughtful characterization were particular improvements on Cottingham's debut, alongside the same sapphic representation and youthful romance I loved in "My Dearest, Darkest."

The ending was rushed, and a tad too Pollyanna. Still, this one was a win for me.

Huge thank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for a honest review!

i absolutely LOVEDDD this book!
-the representation absolutely amazing
-the premise of a zombie apocalypse and reintegration into society…amazing
-this books was spooky, compelling, funny and kept me on the edge of my seat i couldn’t read it fast enough
-Also Coachella meets Fyre Festival vibes…10/10

this is one of those books that i wish i had when i was in the YA age group as i would have fallen back in love with read so much more quickly. Overall absolutely amazing books HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend anyone to read this and would be amazing read for the fall spooky vibes!

A murder mystery with MC’s unit hero MC’s, having already established a world where as zombies they are not hidden or secret, this excels for the world building reminiscent of some favourite paranormal romance series: iZombie, True Blood, etc.
The romance was not the strongest aspect fo the book since I didn’t live that it was friends to lovers and a bit annoyingly slow, but that’s my preference.

This one was in some ways a lot less scarier than My Delicious Death and in some ways, way worse. I can say after these two books that I'd read anything Kayla Cottingham writes.

This Delicious Death is a fun thriller that is part teen zombie movie, part dystopia, and part YA romance. Part of the book did get fairly gory, so this is definitely a book to avoid if blood and guts bother you. However, I loved this book. It was fast-paced and I quickly fell in love with the four main characters. The world building was very interesting, and was given to us in pieces of mixed media, by way of tweets or pieces of speeches.

This Delicious Death tells the stories of four ghoul or Hollow people, two years after the beginning of the Hollowing, an event similar to what we would think of as a zombie apocalypse. The hollows are not dead, but do need to eat human organs or syn-meat to survive. Syn-meat is a synthetic alternative to meat that was developed and distributed by the government to keep ghouls under control. The government also tracks ghouls through an app and required meal check-ins.

This book follows four ghouls going to a music festival and trying to enjoy themselves after a hard two years when things begin to go wrong and people begin to go missing. This book is fast-paced and filled with character, the writing style was wonderful, and left me excited to see what would come next the entire time. This book was tense, but still had fun moments and made me feel like I was at a summer festival myself.

There are two reasons why I did not give this book a full five stars. The first is that the relationship drama between Celeste and Zoey was incredibly annoying to read from an outsider who saw the obvious signs that Celeste liked Zoey the entire time, while Zoey was oblivious. Now I will say that Zoey read as autistic-coded to me, which may not have been intentional but could explain why she did not pick up on the seemingly very obvious clues. The other aspect I wish we got from this book was slightly more detailed world-building. We learned a lot through flashbacks and dialogue, but I wish that it had been taken just a little further- for example we never learned how Jasmine or Valeria got back to their families after the Hollowing, and we get hints of discrimination towards ghouls, but it is never deeply discussed.

All in all though, this book was a very fun thriller and I will be looking forward to reading more of Cottingham's work.

3.5 stars, rounding up


Zoey and her three best friends (Celeste, Valeria "Val" and Jasmine) are all going together to the indie music festival Desert Bloom, smack dab in the middle of the Mojave. they're really excited for this; it's been a long time since they've had the opportunity to go on a trip together, and they can't wait to listen to good music, wear beautiful makeup, and take glamorous selfies.

unfortunately, Zoey and her friends are also sitting on top of a pretty dangerous (and inconvenient) secret; all four of them are ghouls.

two years ago, something called the Hollowing happened. due to climate change (thanks guys) and the permafrost melting, a new sickness crept into humans and created what they eventually called 'ghouls'. the Hollowing was catastrophic; if you weren't infected yourself, someone in your family was, and anybody who didn't get sick was at immediate risk of being eaten by their newly cannibalistic fellows.

see, being a Hollow person means that you need to eat human flesh to retain human sentience. go too long without it and ghouls become 'feral'; one-track minded to consumption and difficult to stop. ghouls all have increased strength, durability, and senses and when they're in a feeding frenzy they develop razor sharp claws and a bottom jaw that can easily unhinge to allow space for like, somebody's entire arm.

humanity survived the Hollowing singularly bc scientists somewhere came up with SynFlesh, a replacement meal that is lab-grown and keeps ghouls 'human' and fully in control of themselves. nonetheless, all Hollow people need to be registered with the Emergency Hollow Preparedness Association and are subject to be tracked via the required cellphone app, HollowLife. in the app there is a mandatory eating log, where ghouls submit pictures of every meal to prove they are abstaining from authentic human meat.

the girls were given permission by their local agent to attend the music festival and it's the first time since the Hollowing that they've been out from under someone's immediate thumb. this would have been the trip of a lifetime, if not for some strange drug going around that's making ghouls go feral. Valeria is the first casualty of this (or I guess technically the dude she eats is) but it launches a fast-paced thriller where the squad scrambles to figure out what's going on and how to stop it before it's too late.

this book was a really fun mix between serious concepts (the trauma from the Hollowing; remembering bits and pieces of the terrible things they did in the feral days; the isolation of being a known ghoul; the relentless fear of losing control) and hilarious ones (Val is annoying everyone bc she has the hots for an obnoxious musician; ghouls can get drunk and the girls are determined to make that happen; there's too many hot people running around for these disaster gays to focus). the story dipped between low and high points and was funny all the way between, which was impressive given some of the content.

I really ended up liking the girls and was invested in their happy ending from the get go. all the chapters start with a little special something; mostly a flashback from one of the girl's, sometimes a tweet from a Desert Bloom attendant or a passage from a book written by an anti-ghoul conservative. this gave the audience an opportunity to really get in all the girls' heads, despite the pov being centered around Zoey.

overall I really enjoyed this book and will be recommending it to folks who like more comedic horrors.



rep - bi protag, bi trans mc, queer mc, lesbian mc, bg queer characters

thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc ✨

This book very much reminded me of Warm Bodies! A fun spin on the zombie trope, I enjoyed the author's view of making it more "acceptable" and "mainstream" in the world that they created.

Each of the characters were interesting in their own way, I didn't find myself confused with all the different details and the flashbacks.

The mix of the characters navigating a lighter topic typical teenage angst and drama mixed with a heavier topic of death and a deadly pandemic was super unique and enjoyable to read! It was super weird in the absolute best way possible!

I would have liked just a bit more time to wrap up the ending, I feel it happened a little too quickly!

This was a fun horror-YA for me! Sapphic/queer/+rep, lots of sarcasm, and over the top girl drama. I loved it for what it was, lol. It was like Warm Bodies mixed with Jennifers Body and I was here for it!

This delicious death was a lot of fun to read. I loved the horror aspects but also the monster murder mystery that was incorporated. The book had a lot of great ideas and moments which were well executed, with a perfect balance between supernatural and romance.

The plot was fast paced, and the characters were all very realistic so it was easy to read, and very engaging, I could easily visualise this becoming a tv show or movie, because the imagery was great.

Each character had their own distinct personalities and quirks, so there was no confusion between them during the flashbacks detailing their experiences of the pandemic starting, and being turned into ghouls. Despite it being a dark book, there were quite a few comedic moments, which helped ease the tension, and made me laugh aloud.

My only minor complaint, is that the ending felt quite rushed and anticlimactic, but I thought overall it was a great book, with great representation and a slow burn, friends to lovers trope that had me giggling and kicking my feet.

This was such a fun read! The content of the story was very heavy and scary but the way that it was told was much lighter and very enjoyable. I loved the main character and her girl group. I loved the representation and inclusivity as well as the authors thorough use of content warning at the beginning of the book. The music festival setting was very fun and super timely and I feel like will help this story be a big hit. I really recommend it for a fun, spooky read.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

***

"This Delicious Death" is a solid and interesting take on a pandemic/zombie-type affliction that felt sort of like a Scooby-Doo caper.

It's got humor and horror, a strong mix to satisfy a fairly wide audience and brings to life strong queer characters trying to navigate confusing youth mixed with the added trouble of being flesh eating ghouls.

There is some back and forth timeline-wise, which can be confusing if you put it down and pick it back up later.

This ARC was provided by the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A music festival, five friends and man-eating monsters.. what could go wrong? Zoey and her friends are part of a group of people changed by a virus, causing them to turn into monsters (called Hollow people) but thankfully the government found a solution with synthetic meat. At the first music festival since the event, however, someone has found a way to make the Hollows go feral and the girls must race to save themselves and everyone else.

This book was just so great! The characters were fun and interesting, and the plot was new and unique. This gave me such “Wednesday” vibes in the way characters were portrayed. Plus the side-plot of the love story between the main character and her best friend was so adorable.

The only thing against this book is the motivation of the antagonist and how the ending played out. It all happened so fast, it kind of seemed a tad anticlimactic.

Overall this was a fun YA horror.