I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Kensington Books for the ARC!

Ecological horror is one of my favorite subgenres - especially ecohorror that explores the dissolving boundaries between human and more-than-human environments and bodies. With its promises of an ocean-borne contagion infecting the wildlife, the seascape, and people of a small fishing town, and for that infection to induce so-called "deading" which compels the infected to collapse, die, and then rise again, changed, <i>The Deading</i> can certainly be categorized as such.

I found the opening chapters compelling and effective in their attempt to situate the story within the ecohorror tradition. Almost immediately, we are introduced to the grotesque, transformative encounter between an oyster farmer and the snails, or mollusks, that have infected the farm (any mention of mollusks and spirals immediately reminded me of [book:Uzumaki|17837762]). While sometimes repetitive, Belardes' narration is descriptive and visceral. This style of narration continues throughout the novel, and the attention given to the natural environment and its inhabitants - from the ocean to the forests - is deliberate. Told through multiple POVs, across gender, age, ethnicity, and even species, the reader is, in a way, forced to undergo, not just observe, the emerging changes and their myriad a/effects.

However, this came at the expense of engaging, fleshed-out character work. I found many characters to border on being one-dimensional and this considerably impacted my enjoyment. Moreover, while being sometimes overwhelmingly descriptive, I felt I was sometimes told what to feel and think; my emotions carefully curated rather than gently guided towards the desired affective state. That the author didn't trust in my ability to reach his desired affective state, to reach the "correct" conclusions. If that makes sense. This first happened in the chapters with the oyster farmer and owner Bernhard, where his inner monologues were presented in a manner which indicated it was VERY important that I realize he wasn't a great guy. That I shouldn't empathize with him. Not one redeemable quality there. Secondly, I felt that I was often told, not shown, that the unfolding events were uncanny and grotesque, and while I enjoyed the descriptive language, it struggled to maintain the sense of dread often present in ecohorror.

<i>The Deading</i>, while not perfect, does utilize the full arsenal of narrative techniques afforded by ecohorror. It raises ecological awareness, engages with the unsettling transformations caused by environmental pollutants and toxins, and human/more-than-human encounters dissolving distinct borders between the "two," and it firmly places itself in the 'nature-strikes-back" tradition (also my least favorite take on ecohorror).

In other words, I found this to be an overall effective ecological horror story that definitely invokes both King's <i>Under the Dome</i> and the games and HBO-series <i>The Last of Us</i>, but which nevertheless failed to fully an consistently grasp my attention and interest. I do recommend this novel to other ecohorror fans, perhaps in particular to those who love nature-revenge ecohorrors.

This felt like a fever dream from start to finish, and I was second guessing everything I read, and re-read. There was a plot in the first few chapters, but it quickly was overshadowed by the bizarre writing style and strange tangents.
It starts with a pretty clear plot and an easily identifiable direction that it’s going. I excited the first dew chapters in and was expecting wildlife horror, and was thrilled about the idea of a town being under lock-down. There is the town and its lockdown, and was wildlife that did not act normal (but what was with the excess talk about birds? I love birds myself- I even have a bird tattoo but I didn’t understand it. Maybe it is a high over-arching theme that I am not seeing) but that is about the only concise thing I can speak about. After the first 5 pages it is a total loss. The rest is a muddled mess of human nature turned violet, and a collective mind overtaking humans. But it’s not just a collective mind, except we don’t ever get to know the true definition. This book feels like someone wanted to write all the horror plots into one book and call it a day.
I will be frank, the writing was so hard to get through. It felt clunky and entirely inorganic and maddeningly confusing. The overall style of the book was also strange. Though that is very possible it could just be a tech thing with my Kindle so I wouldn’t give it too much though. Dialogue between characters was actually fantastic and I appreciated one speck of good. The cast is decently sized and I was sort of expecting it. They all have their own individual stories and interactions. Normally this would be great but this all adds another layer of plot to separate and ended up feeling like a chore.
There was no resolution to book which both shocked and frustrated me. One of the main reasons why I decided to push to finish the book was so I could hopefully gain some clear understanding as to what was happening. I didn’t, and it only left me with more questions and a desire to take back the time I took to read it. Needless to say I half wish I DNF’d it.

Look, I get it. I do but I’m still giving this 4 stars. While I can see the things everyone is complaining about; too much description, too many POV’s, run on sentence I think that added to my whole reading experience 🤣
My god Belardes tells a story and you have to respect the game. The no holding back- the extreme critical eye turned upon human nature.
When I wasn’t distracted by an excellent (IMO) story I was focusing on the message that humans are simultaneously both fascinated by and yet incapable of not destroying nature. Whether that’s Mother Nature or human nature.
This book does do too much but in the best way. The way where you cheer the author on- get it push those boundaries!
I also feel like it had some real Under the Dome vibes and I loved that book.

If you’re in the mood for an eco-horror with layered, measured characters and slow, lyrical description - then this is the book for you. I love the details of the bird and snails especially. You can tell the author did a lot of research (or delved further into their special interest…)

I do think the comp titles weren’t completely accurate - not in a bad way. Though, if you enter this book wanting something remotely related to The Dome or the Last of Us, you’ll probably leave disappointed.

And as an ex-goth teen girl, this felt especially harrowing and, actually, confrontingly rude. I loved every second.

I want to start by saying thank you for the opportunity to have a review copy of this. I am really sad to say that this book did not work for me. Which is a shame, I was excited for this book. Very few books don’t work for me and this just happened to fall in that category.

I did finish it however so there is that.

I feel like there was too much happening and that the author was trying to do way too many things with such a vast amount of characters. It felt a bit like we were getting sidetracked from the main story with side plots.

This sort of book will work well for others but it didn’t work for me. I love being open to interpretation but I do like some things wrapped up nicely and this just left way too many open holes for me.

There are some things I loved, I love horror and I love biology and I love zombies. So there is that and I also loved the setting, anything with an ocean gets a thumbs up from me. I would definitely read something else by this author if it came my way. But this particular one didn’t gel with me.

Overall I would rate it 2 out of 5 which yes is low. But I would definitely recommend it to people I know who would enjoy this type of horror. I really don’t want the author to get disheartened because it didn’t work for me.

Plague horror is 100 times scarier after covid. Isolated on an island plague horror is just terrifying!! This was very good!

Never had I thought bird watching could become interesting.

This was definitely advertised correctly as being liked by fans of 'Last of Us'. I am a fan of both the show and the games. I would also recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Grady Hendrix.

There are definitely times where I was confused and unsure of what was going on, but that was because the characters were confused as well.

"If you want to stay, you have to die."
The Deading is a dystopian novel that takes places in a seaside village that becomes infected by this mysterious ocean-borne contagion. This one follows a cast of characters and each character was intriguing. It was written really well and had me turning pages until the very end. This was a deep story with lots of twist and turns. I loved this book so much and enjoyed this gripping read and would recommend this one to any reader but especially to readers who love sci-fi or horror. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for this dystopian read in exchange of my honest review of The Deading by Nicholas Belardes.

"The Deading" by Nicholas Belardes is a haunting and thought-provoking exploration of mortality, memory, and the blurred lines between life and death. The narrative weaves together a tapestry of eerie and surreal experiences that challenge the boundaries of reality, immersing readers in a world where the past and present intertwine.

Belardes’s writing is both poetic and unsettling, skillfully capturing the emotional weight of his characters' struggles. The story delves into themes of grief and the afterlife, provoking deep reflection on the nature of existence and the connections we forge.

With its unique blend of horror and philosophical inquiry, "The Deading" is a compelling read that will linger in the minds of those who dare to venture into its darkly imaginative landscape. Fans of literary fiction with a twist of the macabre will find much to appreciate in this intriguing novel.

This is a very different type of story about "deading," which started out as a game by high schoolers playing at being dead for social media fodder. It jumps around between multiple characters in the California city of Baywood where deading is taking over. One character, Bernard, has an oyster farm in the bay that gets overrun with snails, he meets with an accident, and the snails take over his body and make him part of the "deading", now an entity. Other characters, Chango and Blas, are brothers who live with their mother. Chango works for Bernard at the oyster farm, and Blas is obsessed with bird watching and documenting his sightings. Blas is friends with Kumi Sato, an old widow in tune with nature and fellow bird watcher. Ingram and Victor are also two bird watching friends in the town. All the characters are affected negatively by the deading in one way or another, and it is causing extremely concerning behavior. "It wills her to slip into the dead stasis, to join the others, to be like the birds and the snails, to be the people giving in, giving up, slowly, collectively, dying."

This was a little difficult for me to get into at first. It seemed to be jumping around, and I wasn't sure who was speaking throughout some of the story. There is something wrong with everyone, but you just aren't sure what exactly is happening. The suspense and dread were felt in Mr. Belardes' writing. I thought the story was very uniquely written and was an interesting concept.

The Deading has an interesting premise, unique characters, and some really wonderful imagery when it comes to descriptions of nature. As a bird lover myself, the birdwatching descriptions really spoke to me, though I think you need to be a certain type of reader to appreciate them.

I do feel like this book would have been more effective if it stuck to one focus. It felt like it was pulled between two or three completely different plots. This made for a somewhat inconsistent reading experience with the pacing and feeling like I was reading multiple books at once. However, the writing style and language choice was quite beautiful.

ARCs received from Kensington Books via Netgalley and a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you!

The concept was genuinely interesting - the comps are pretty spot on actually. The interpersonal relationships will capture most readers but the overall execution wasn't satisfactory or memorable.

I really wanted to like this. There was just SO much going on. The changing POVs without warning gave me whiplash and I had to reread multiple lines to figure out whose perspective I was reading from. This has so much promise but fell so flat for me and it’s such a bummer.

DNF @ 50%
For a book with such an intriguing blurb, a badass horror cover, and great marketing it’s incredible disappointing to give up on it. But I cannot read another repetitive, useless, cyclical descriptive paragraph, or run-on sentence, again. There are so many issues with this story sadly.
Here are the big ones that stand out to me:
1) I never know who is talking at the beginning of the chapter! I need names please, or immediate orientating of which characters POV I’m getting. It’s very annoying (and distracting) to try and figure out whose thoughts I’m reading.
2) The extended descriptive, repetitive prose is unnecessary. I don’t need five different examples of birds being unable to fly or humans lying on the grass. This book could be less than half its size if the prose was cut down and made short, sweet, and impactful.
3) The actual plot has been lost inside the descriptions and constant discussion of birds. I do not care this much about bird watching! The Deading could have been a cool opportunity to get people interested in birdwatching. Instead it will bore you into looking for birds; anything to keep you distracted from reading more on the page in front of you.
4) The isolation of the town is illogical at times. Apparently no one was visiting when the quarantine was imposed? No one is missing family members who were travelling, all the kids have all their parents and friends in town at the moment of isolation? It’s strange that this assumption is put into place when it could have setup an interesting plot point about who is where and how the virus attacks locals versus tourists different. Huge lost opportunity in my opinion.
5) I’m sooo bored. I do not care at all what is happening in the bay, with the animals and humans, etc. I went and crept on some other reviews and read a lot of the same complaints I have. And so I’m DNFing this one because it doesn’t seem worth it to carry on if it doesn’t get any better (which according to other reviewers it doesn’t).

It’s always disappointing to be unsatisfied by a book, but to be downright annoyed, bored, and disinterested takes a fair bit of work (ironically). The Deading needed a heavy handed editor, some story boarding to map out who is where, when and why, and some focus on the point of the story or at least a sense of where it’s headed. Thus I concede, I’m beat and ready to move on get or into something that (hopefully) doesn’t include anything about birdwatching.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

I loved the gloomy atmosphere and the slight The Last of Us vibes. The writing was well done. I didn’t mind the constant switching of the POVs. I didn’t think it was too hard to figure out who I was following. However, this wasn’t the horror book for me. I knew going into this that it was going to be a niche type of eco horror, but I’ve realized quickly that conspiracy theorist meets ornithology is not my cup of tea. Thank you to Erewhon Books for providing an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A dystopian novel about a dreamy coastal town that spirals into madness after a mysterious infection from the ocean takes over the living.

I was highly intrigued by the premise of this book, it hit a lot of the right boxes for me, in theory. Sadly already after reading a while I felt like this is not for me, I had a hard time getting into the setting and story and care for anything or anyone. It feels like it wanted to tackle too much and rolled over lifeless on the side after a while, it was definitely lacking focus left and right. All in all it definitely also fell too short on the horror side for my taste, I would’ve loved much more of that. Less bird facts, more horror please.
So overall it comes sadly down to a 1.75-2 for me.

I thank Netgalley and Kensington Books for the ARC!

TW/CW: Language, gore, drinking, toxic family relationships, racism, sexism

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:
In a small fishing town known for its aging birding community and the local oyster farm, a hidden evil emerges from the depths of the ocean. It begins with sea snails washing ashore, attacking whatever they cling to. This mysterious infection starts transforming the wildlife, the seascapes, and finally, the people.

Once infected, residents of Baywood start “deading”: collapsing and dying, only to rise again, changed in ways both fanatical and physical. As the government cuts the town off from the rest of the world, the uninfected, including the introverted bird-loving Blas and his jaded older brother Chango, realize their town could be ground zero for a fundamental shift in all living things.

Soon, disturbing beliefs and autocratic rituals emerge, overseen by the death-worshiping Risers. People must choose how to survive, how to find home, and whether or not to betray those closest to them. Stoked by paranoia and isolation, tensions escalate until Blas, Chango, and the survivors of Baywood must make their escape or become subsumed by this terrifying new normal.
Release Date: July 23rd, 2024
Genre: Horror
Pages: 304
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Cover
2. The synopsis sounded good

What I Didn't Like:
1. Deading mentioned 121
2. Didn't care for the writing style
3. Story is all over the place

Overall Thoughts:
{{Disclaimer: I write my review as I read}}

Take a drink everytime deading is mentioned.

Wtf?
Final Thoughts:
I am so completely sorry but I just could not get into this book. It jumps from thought to thought and you never really have a sense of what you're even reading because we're on to another person or another subject. It just seems like this book lacked focus.

There were so many times when I was reading that I would zone out because I no longer found myself caring about what I was even reading about. The characters were not interesting. It just sounded like a bunch of whiny kids going off about how adults are pretending to get the dreading. I guess back in my day we would have called them posers. I guess in these kids minds they think adults are throwing themselves into the road pretending to have it so that they could have their legs run over and get a totally different personality. I don't even know.

I got halfway into the book before I decided I could no longer carry on. I really tried I did. It just was so boring and unfocused.

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Thanks to Netgalley and Erewhon Books for the ebook. Thanks to Recorded Books for the audiobook. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thank You, NetGalley for an advanced ARC of this book as an audiobook

what got me interested in this book was the description saying - **Stephen King’s _Under the Dome_ meets _The Last of Us_ in this harrowing dystopian novel about the downward spiral of a seaside town that becomes infected by a mysterious ocean-borne contagion.**

But for me I got vibes of the thing as well which is not a bad thing due to the fact I love the original film, but also the recent game that came out called Still Wakes The Deep but on land not an oil rig... This book is a very slow burn at the beginning and it goes into many POVS of the people who live in the small fishing sea town, the book starts picking up pace at around 35 to 40% showing more of the contamination & its possession of the people from the inside, changing them by making them die to rise again. In this we get allot of information about birds but they are important to the story due to the mutation being spread by them as well as other animals... we see a small population be isolated and contained by the government & the teenagers who made a trend called Deading where teens pretend to be dead (but some of them after a while thinks that what they created has taken on a life of its own creating a new urban legend & myth like bloody Mary - starting a religion in how far the delusion has taken hold - not realizing this is a creature and disease ).

This book is definitely not a book that will be for everyone due to how slow it starts and the themes it has ( but the story i thought was very well written and also very well in how it presents the atmosphere and connection to the people so you care about what's happening, as well as keeping you gripped if your like me who enjoys weird and the unusual )

Thank you for the ARC! I felt very disconnected from the story and did not finish it. I got 20% of the way through but the writing was too disjointed for me.