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.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!🐌🐦

I decided to request this ARC based on the synopsis, which sounded rather intriguing, and I have to say, this book definitely delivered.

The beginning was a little slow paced (especially the bird parts🙄), but once people started "deading" the plot definitely began to pick up. The main plot is basically about our main characters trying to navigate and survive this new world that they are thrust into, and I had a lot of fun (not fun for them though🤪) following along on their journey. There are a lot of different elements and PoVs, and at times it made the book feel kind of bloated. I feel like some of them could have been reduced or even removed from this book entirely, because they take away/distract from the main plot.

I quite enjoyed the writing style, which switched between first- and third-person for different characters, which I find to be an interesting narrative choice, as well as a good way to distinguish each PoV's voices. The depictions of the horror-y bits were also really good, like it was legit creepy. :3

Some minor complaints:
- the ending was kinda vague and I wish it could have been more fully explained; maybe that was deliberate, but like.
- way too much of this book was spent talking about birds. I understand that the author is an avid birdwatcher, and that 3 of the main characters are also big fans of birds, but multiple pages in a row listing various birds is a bit much innit
- one of the blurbs pitched this book as "eco-horror", but the horror elements weren't necessarily due to/caused by climate change, so I found that misleading.

P. S. love the grimace shake reference💜

Thank you to Netgalley, Erewhon Books, and Nicholas Belardes for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I want to preface my review by acknowledging that I am one of those readers who frequently does not read the blurb or genre tags listed before picking up a new book. More often than not, I find that the blurb gives away too many spoilers for the plot, so I developed this habit to compensate. That being said, in the case of The Deading, this might be precisely why I was able to enjoy this book more than the majority who have reviewed it so far.

As an avid lover of Under the Dome and The Last of Us, I genuinely believe this book aligns with neither of these fandoms. To be perfectly clear - this does not mean I disliked the book. On the contrary, I found myself really enjoying it. However, if you're searching for a more accurate comparison, I'd say it's like if Chuck Palahniuk's younger sibling or nephew, after spending years studying Freud's unconscious mind theory, wrote an eco-horror extolling the virtues (or lack thereof) of the general population amidst an alien invasion.

The writing frequently shifted in point of view, but it was a deliberate narrative choice to indicate which of the (many) characters we were following in each chapter. It didn't alienate me, but I can see how it might be confusing or off-putting to others. I think, had it been used as a tool for shifting between the human and inhuman perspective, it might have made a little bit more sense to the majority of readers, but I can appreciate what Nicholas was doing.

The author had a lyrical writing style that was, in my opinion, unsettlingly beautiful. The birds played an important part in this, shifting from something beautiful into something uncanny-valley-esque (it's a word now, don't fight me) over time. This book made me feel hopeless. This book felt like a disturbingly accurate depiction of how people would react to an eco invasion.

I enjoyed it. I don't know if I'd read it again, but it deserves the four stars, because it's made me think a lot, and it's taken me three days to come up with the right words for this review.

I know it's not for everyone, but it was for me.

“We need horror,” Nicholas Belardes says in the acknowledgements to his debut novel, The Deading. “We need the primordial terror in ourselves to show us that we can face fears, imagine ourselves as the heroes, or the ones who get caught, or the monsters that create fear. . . The mirror that horror holds up to us is real. And we are in the reflections. And we’re better for it.” The Deading is an eco-horror novel that charts the downfall of a small California town as its environment succumbs to the mysterious and eponymous “deading.” The fictional town of Baywood, CA, is a microcosm for the highly polarized America we live in. A dark exploration of humanity, The Deading depicts how a single person’s actions can tip the scales between life and death, unity and war, and salvation and the earth’s destruction. With The Deading, Belardes holds the mirror up to the reader, emphasizing the anthropogenic and post-pandemic similarities between the horrifying world of the novel and our own.

Baywood is a peaceful, coastal town known for its bird sanctuary and sprawling oyster farms. The multi-perspective novel shifts between Blas, a teenager bird watcher, Chango, his older brother, Ingram and Kumi, two elderly bird watchers, and Bernard, a self-centered farmer. Everything forever changes for the citizens of Baywood—especially Blas, Chango, and Kumi—when a deadly contagion strikes back (a la The Last of Us, deadly snail edition). The force of nature—born of pollution, toxins, and an alien, otherworldly force—infects every sea creature, animal, and person on Baywood’s shores. Though the author refrains from revealing everything about the actual nature and effects of the contagion, each perspective offers a new layer—a new truth—about this world. As inexplicable and bone-chilling transformations begin to happen to the citizens of Baywood, the experience comes to be known as “the deading.” Those infected drop randomly, sporadically, their soul and consciousness going elsewhere, and their bodies cease to function for seconds to minutes before they rise back up like nothing happened. The elusive and bewildering origins of the contagion, of nature’s vengeful hitman, immerses the reader into the characters’ tangible—and highly relatable—fear of the unknown.

However, some citizens seem to be immune to this alien, sea-born contagion—including Blas, Kumi, and other aging birdwatchers—who interestingly enough maintain their deep connection to nature and ornithology throughout the novel. It remains mysterious as to why—another obscuring tactic employed by the author. Yet, I theorize a connection between their immunity and the loving, appreciative relationship each has with nature and its creatures. In this way, the deading becomes a terrifying lesson in its own right. As a governmental quarantine is enforced on the town of Baywood, the characters are cut off from the rest of the world and monitored by a swarm of animal-like drones. During this time, a fanatical group called the Risers—people who are willingly infected with the contagion—take over the town, forming a new society built on death and blood and sacrifice. Those that don’t follow the Risers, those who are immune to the alien-like contagion and refuse to pretend to participate in the deading, pay the ultimate price. If the contagion is the lit match, the fanatic citizens of Baywood are the kerosine.


The Deading opens with evocative descriptions of birds, sky, and nature which continue throughout the narrative—especially within the avid bird watchers’ perspectives. Belardes’ exploration of nature and wildlife are nearly pastoral in the harmonious rapture-like language, and yet is distinctly set apart with the presence of foreboding and death: “the sun melting its orange eye into the darkness of Morro Bay’s tidelands, spreading a dust haze into lavender blood” and “the Milky way shoot[ing] its arm along the bowl of the night, loom[ing] like an open wound revealing the scintillating white-and-blue blood of starlight.” The reoccurring visual of blood emphasizes Belardes’ overarching vision of nature’s beautiful violence, and the persistence of the picturesque in the apocalyptic.

DnF at 19%

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books | Erewhon Books for the use!lending of the book in question for an honest review.

The author is definitely knowledgeable about a lot of subjects which comes off both confusing and know-it-all. It was also repeatedly told to us rather than shown and I found the writing to be too much like a non-fiction book that I was studying rather than the fiction I was expecting. Where was the horror and why did it take so long and jump around so much? Just wasn't moving fast enough for me, I suppose.

It's just so unfortunate, honestly, I was hoping to get through it, but it was such a slog and I kept falling asleep which never happens to me when I am reading.

I think this was a very ambitious project. It seems as if the author has something to say about many different topics, or that his interests are quite broad. In any case, this book tries to say something or be profound about so many different things that none of it truly lands.

The story was intriguing and interesting but halfway through it felt like it started to drag. Even so, I was still interested enough to finish the book.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the arc of this one in exchange for an honest review!

This book is like a dystopian book about a town that becomes infected with a contagion and things quickly go downhill.

This book has a very low rating on Goodreads and I understand why (unfortunately). This one was a DNF for me because the writing was just all over the place. I felt so confused and I just couldn't continue.

I hope others love this one but it wasn't for me.

Strange and dark, this horror exploration of identity and pollution takes you on a journey through time and space and down a well of doubt and decay. I think you’ll love the creepy atmosphere, the unearthly menace, and the flawed characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy. These opinions are my own.

The Deading was... definitely unique. Let's start with that. The concept of "deading", in which young folks basically dropped in the middle of whatever they were doing to literally "play dead" was introduced at the start. Of course, like all things popular, eventually The Olds start doing it, and it becomes decidedly less cool. And then... things go off the rails, and right into bird watching. Look- I try not to punish books for how much I dislike birds, and how I'd rather watch paint dry than birds, and I can overlook a pretty reasonable amount of bird shenanigans. But what we have here is not a reasonable amount, I fear. Mostly because I don't really understand what the point of the birds even was?

When the crux of the story starts, the "bad stuff" happens in the water, with an oyster farming operation. The first folks who fall to the "stuff" are in the water. The "stuff" are not birds and have nothing to do with birds, as far as I can tell. Anyway, when the "stuff" infects people, it's like their minds are taken over, and they start deading. What does this have to do with the "deading" trend mentioned at the start of the book? Your guess is as good as mine. But this is a thing that happens to most of the town.

Some members of the local ornithological group, mostly older folks but one teen guy, find themselves immune. Is it because of bird watching? I don't know, but probably not since all of them are not immune. And now they have to, in essence, try to fight back against the townspeople who are infected.

There are some definitely relevant commentaries that are present in the story, but for me, the extraneous topics muddied the waters a bit. There were some interesting pieces, but none of them really came together in any cohesive way. While I liked the concept of the uninfected trying to survive the town, because of all the other stuff, it just didn't hit as hard. Also, how does this random infection cause "deading", which, as we are meant to understand it, was basically a TikTok trend? So... I have questions, and most of them went unanswered. Also, too much bird talk.

Bottom Line: Unique and with some relevant commentary, but the various topics just didn't mesh together in a way that flowed.

When a small fishing town called Baywood is seized by an inexplicable infection that causes people and animals to experience “deading,”: the act of abruptly dying and then returning to life mentally and physically changed, a bird-loving teenager named Blas and other uninflected residents must adjust to a new existence.

Cut off from the outside world by the government, they contend with the changes to the environent around them and the rising paranoia and unhinged death-worshipping rituals concocted by the Risers, who fixate upon their inability to dead as they do.

The Deading is a novel with an intriguing premise and is a blend of isolation, environmental, body and cosmic horror. Told from multiple perspectives and with a switch between first person and third person point of view, the disturbing disintegration of a community is interspersed with contemplations regarding existence and a great deal of detail pertaining to various birds and the subject of bird-watching.

Blas is an interesting character: a teenager who loves his hobby of watching and documenting birds despite some desparaging from his older brother Chango and other wealthier residents, who then must deal with his mother and brother in the grips of deading while his friends slowly dwindle and his community is reshaped into something malevolent.

His older fellow birder Kumi Sato also provides a thoughtful examination of her own experiences, as well as the extent of the fervor and indoctrination of the Risers when she infiltrates their nightmarish ceremonies.

Certain scenes are absolutely engrossing, such as the changes experienced by a character in the beginning of the novel, scenes involving the garish rituals created by the Risers and a final confrontation that edges into the surreal and yet remains unsettling.

Some of the writing resembles a rambling stream of consciousness and there are moments in the middle where the plot becomes slow and seems to drag. There are also characters who survived separately from Blas and who seem to reinvigorate the story, but they aren’t introduced until close to the conclusion of the novel, which is also slightly abrupt as well.

Nevertheless, The Deading displays an admirable passion for its subject matter. Thank you very much to NetGalley, Kensington Books and Erewhon Books for providing access to this ebook.

I was drawn to this book due to the cover art and the reference to The Last of Us. Unfortunately, I am DNFing this read. I think the story structure was just a bit too disjointed for me. Though I did really appreciate the details of birdwatching, that is not a topic I'm normally drawn to but it was really cool to read about in this context.