Think: A fever dream Velvet Goldmine plus Dark Mirror plus Videodrome if reimagined by Julia Ducournau, Poppy Z Brite, and Mary Harron.

That sort of does it.

It’s difficult to really pin down Rock Gods. You could take it at face value and chalk it down as pure abstract surrealism. You could also decode comma and quotation mark for deeply written philosophical wisdom.

I think it’s a little bit of both.

Throughout, Alex is surrounded by ridiculous and grotesque absurdity turned up full volume. It’s a daily expectation that she wipe down her boss’s office from his routine bloody explosions. Just like making sure he has a Twinkie ready with his morning coffee, and delivering memos to the rest of the cabal.

The guy from A&R carries around a stuffed ferret. The head of marketing is always losing and reattaching body parts (there’s a funny quip in there somewhere but I’ll save that for later). She has to (literally) remove her brain before clocking in.

Oh, yeah. Aliens made a rock star.

I think everyone who’s put up with an excessive amount of bullshit under the guise of “paying their dues,” or felt it was necessary to put up with an excessive amount of bullshit to even have a shot at what they want will see themselves in Alex.

She desperately wants to move up in the music industry, but has been told - and believes - the way to get there is to start at the bottom. Just get her foot in the door. Work as a secretary for one of the higher ups and eventually it’ll lead somewhere.

Alex tells herself this over and over. She allows herself to be humiliated, abused, and nearly destroyed for that faint hope of being the secretary of someone a little higher up, and then someone a little higher up from that, until finally a someone sees her true potential and gives her a shot.

But she has to be patient. There’s a way things are done and you have to go through the right channels. You have to suffer before you can succeed. Meanwhile, the ones enforcing that mantra are doing whatever the fuck they want in the top floor conference room - which usually includes creating more and more fanciful titles for themselves and discussing how much of a pay increase they can get away with.

It’s a book about the music industry, about the business world, about being human (or not, as the case may be), and about watching all of your expectations and assumptions fall apart in front of you. And maybe realizing that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

As fun and comedic as Rock Stars can be - and it is definitely both of those things throughout - it’s also a deeply tragic cautionary tale.

We’ve all been Alex at some point. Some of us may be Alex right now. We all probably know an Alex. Maybe we even have an Alex working for us as an overwhelmed secretary with unrealized ambitions that we can’t see for what they are.

Rock Gods is a sharp, witty, horrifying, and reflective must read. Be careful if you have a weak stomach, though: It’s probably the goriest non-horror novel I’ve ever read.

One of the most interesting and bazar books I’ve ever read. The author is very creative and descriptive. I enjoyed this book. Thanks NetGallery!

Rock Gods and Messy Monsters was a book I have never read before. It's not a typical novel and Diane Hatz did a great job on this book. I love how different Alex is as our main character and just like anyone, she wants to make her own way in the music business at Acht Records. What got me is the fact that women in Achts Records have to take out their brains and place them in urns for security reasons and That their world relies on technology that knows their lives is what is different in any book I've read. Consumerism, self-indulgence, and that willingness to do what is necessary to get ahead are what Hatz shows in this book and is what I love about this book. Rock Gods and Messy Monsters is a dystopian novel I feel you have to brace yourself with because you never know what will happen next. To be in Hatz's world in her novel, I'd feel bewildered but curious to know what that world will be like. Thank you, NetGalley for allowing me to read this novel. I am glad I stumbled upon it.

This book was not my favourite, but I will try to start with the positives or, more likely, a positive followed by a negative. First, I loved the insight into the inner workings of the corporate music industry. Second, the writing was strong, but I could not mesh with the style, which is mainly a preference. It was unnecessarily descriptive, and the repetitive phrasing did not help its case. It contained some disgusting, albeit realistic, scenarios that were a slog to get through, and I did not love the execution. I get what this book was trying to do, and I appreciated the satire, but the commentary was a little too vulgar and on the nose. Maybe this book was too out there for me, but I would recommend it to anyone who loves the musical We Will Rock You. Hopefully, others who read this book like it more than I do and have the trip of their lives.

This book is wild! I've never done drugs but I feel like I went on a trip with this story in the best way. It's completely absurd satire and I love it! I feel like this book would be brilliant for a book club/reading club because I think it will bring up lots of talking points. We literally open up with the main character, Alex, removing their brain.

I do wish there was more building as everything is so over-the-top whacky yet I don't fully know much about the world. Go into this with an open mind, expect quite over the top and crazy. I love it. It was an interesting read overall and would read it again for sure.

At 208 pages this is a quick read and definitely worth people's time for something out of the box and refreshing away from the usual book genres out there right now.

4/5 Stars from me.

***A big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced audiobook copy in exchange for an honest review.***