Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this book.

Never before in my life would I imagine bird-watching be this interesting and confusing.

The atmosphere of the unknown being very present through-out this book. Personally, I love the use of an ocean based virus being the source of the infection. It's a take that I haven't seen before when it comes to apocalyptical/end of humanity genre.

Additionally, the characters were well written and very dimentional given that it is a standalone novel.. Shorter books have a bigger struggle compared to series given that there is more time, and pages, for characters to grow. For this alone, I give props to the book.

Unfortunately, I was confused the majority of the time how this virus spread. It felt that every time I was beginning to understand how it works, I'm right back to being unsure. This could be because I didn't listen to the audiobook consistently; even though I finished this in two days. I may try to revisit this book later on as an ebook to see if I can get a better understanding because I really enjoy the premise. But for now, it would remain as a 3 star....

Let me preface with I listened to the audiobook. Thank you to Netgalley, RBmedia Recorded Books, and Erewhon Books for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Deading had great potential. The coastal town of Baywood is transformed by an evil that comes of the deep as the ocean warms. It starts in the snails that come to feast upon the oysters at the oyster farm. They infect the wildlife, and soon all of Baywood is experiencing the same phenomenon. They all find themselves "deading," falling to the ground, writhing in pain until they die, only to rise once again. The government severs the community from the rest of the world, leaving Baywood isolated besides the drones that bring supplies and food. A cult of "Risers" forms, and those few who do not "dead" must either find a way to escape or conform. A unique premise.

I don't see a lot of eco-horror, and I liked the idea that this illness - contagion? - came from rapidly warming waters. The whole concept reminded me of the "brain-hijacking" trematode that we see in snails. I thought that was the direction the book was going. It was not. The snails quickly fade from focus. There was a lot of talk about birds, but I felt like the birds were not utilized enough for the plot to warrant the amount of information we were given. Maybe the author just really enjoys birds?

Despite some very odd things happening in the town, I did not feel that this was truly a horror novel. There were some moments, but the most of the audiobook dragged and even the tense moments fell flat. I think the narrators did a decent job trying to bring more emotion to the story. Unfortunately, the writing just wasn't there. A lot of it felt like I was listening to a textbook. It was dry. I honestly really liked the idea but not the execution for this one.

I thought the premise of this one was interesting but I quickly found myself struggling to focus on the narration. I think this might work better for me as a physical book so I will try to track down a copy to read instead.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.

First time reading Nicholas Belardes, Enjoyed book. Good plot, pacing, and characters. Will be reading more from Nicholas Belardes. #TheDeading #NetGalley

Oh, this one was tricky. I nearly put The Deading down permanently, but I decided to trust the process and see where it led.

The creepy aspects provided a hook that kept me invested. I kept waiting for the big reveal, as there seemed to be a lot of twisty options, but they didn’t really amount to much.

The diversity of the characters, especially in their ages, was impressively done and believable. I appreciated experiencing the town's tailspin from different generational perspectives, which was definitely my favorite aspect.

I wish some of the more burdensome areas, like the bird watching, had been edited down. If the time spent on those sections had been devoted to the storyline and spooky elements, this could have been epic. As it stands, I’m not sure I’d recommend it.

Thank you Nicholas Benares, RBmedia, and NetGalley for my advanced review audio copy!

Plot - 2
Writing and Editing - 2
Character Development - 4
Narration - 4
Personal Bias - 2
Final Score - 2.8

Overall, the story was interesting, but I felt by the end of the book it meandered. The concept was interesting and was the main reason kept reading. The characters never seemed to really evolve much,

This one wasn’t for me. There were so many different overlapping plot lines with different characters that we very quickly lost sight of the actual plot. I was definitely interested in the ecological ramifications of the oyster farm, the chemicals dumped into the water as a last-ditch effort to kill the snails, the warmer than average water, and the changes in bird migratory patterns - but most of the characters distracted (and detracted) from that larger impact

<b>2.5 stars</b>


There were some really interesting sci-fi ideas and some genuinely scary scenes in this book, but ultimately it was told too fragmentedly for me to get engrossed in the story. I didn't care about what happened in the end.

Some parts are really introspective. Sometimes, these sections provide interesting insights into the characters and situations, but other times they feel like overwritten, pointless rambling.

e-ARC from NetGalley.

This book was on my TBR as soon as I read the synopsis. I put in a request at my library months ago. To say i was hyped when i received the audio ARC would be an understatement. So please know how disappointed I am that I didn't like this.

The premise is intriguing. We're promised The Last of Us meets Stephen King's Under the Dome. I'll admit it's been nearly a decade since I played that game, and I've never read that book, but I'm not sure I agree with those comparisons. What I will give it is the last 100 pages of King's IT - which was what prevented that book from being a 5 star read for me.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with Belardes' writing. I found it evocative and, at times, delightfully, disturbingly detailed. What I struggled with was the story itself: It felt like we started off with one thing, then went in an entirely different direction only to end up doing a few loops on a roundabout and dizzily taking off down a random side road.

The beginning started off as climate/environmental horror. We have these rare snails poisoning people, which leads to some strange sort of mutated humanoid under a hive mind, going into members of this community randomly dropping dead and coming back to life.

I was into it.

Until we found ourselves somehow engaged in a teenage-run reenactment of the Salem Witch Trials? We opened on these teenagers pretending to be dead on social media, supposedly to bring awareness to Black Lives Matter and school shootings. Then the deading began, which made the kids mad that they were being "copied." So they were like, "Hey. Check my SnapChat. I did it first. Adults should do as we say." And the adults were like, "For sure." And the teenagers (who only ever faked it on Facebook or Instagram or whatever) are now like, "As the creator of this, we declare that Bloody Mary is real & we must identify and murder all those people who are not randomly dropping dead every day." And the townsfolk were like, "Yeah. Totally."

I would have been good with zombies or people coming back "different" or some sort of slow, dread-inducing infection. But the inexplicable hivemind fanaticism just didn't work for me. The utter lack of resistance to this new regime. The fact that the town's people sided with a murder hobo from a nearby ditch over members of their community whom they'd known for years. The internet was down, and there was no TV or radio, but a random birdwatching website was still operational.

I really appreciated the symbolism of it all. The opposition to the hivemind and mob mentality. The importance placed on individual thought. The significance of whistleblowers in a corrupt society. Loyalty to family. The ultimate decision between nature and the government.

I just didn't love the execution.

Firstly I’d like to thank rbmedia and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this arc for my honest review.
I didn’t hate this book but I didn’t enjoy it either. It started off interesting but that’s where it ended for me. I didn’t find any of the characters to be interesting which made it hard for me to get into the story. I felt the horror aspect was lacking for me. I also felt like it was a bit all over the place. Wasn’t for me.

when I read the summary of this book, I thought it had a lot of potential for what it could be and how it could play out. I am a fan of both Stephen King and the video game The Last of Us, so I was interested in seeing how a book could capture some of the dystopian horror and mystery encapsulated by those.

I wasn't able to find as many of the eerie vibes as I was hoping to as i worked my way through this audiobook. I thought the narrator did a great job but the story itself fell a bit flat for me. Or, perhaps not flat so much as forcing the eeriness. I like books that make me think and books that also have alternating points of view, all which this book offers the reader. However, it doesn't do it in the most coherence and clear way.

The beginning portions where people are imitating dying and "deading" just reminded me of the phase of when people were "planking" on random surfaces a few years ago. I had a hard time picturing it coming across as horrific, it just seemed like a bunch of people kid of playing dead until people actually started dying.

The book has ups and down and some fast and slow points but I didn't really understand much about the bird chapters either and why we needed to go into such depth about bird watching.

I really wish I could have liked this book more.

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 )

First, a big thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for the opportunity to read this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"The Deading" promised a thrilling ride through eco-horror and cosmic terror, set in a small coastal town where the natural world seems to turn against its inhabitants. However, despite its intriguing premise, the execution left much to be desired.

From the outset, the book tries to balance an array of elements—ranging from the ominous presence of a mysterious contagion to the overwhelming paranoia of government surveillance. The story is packed with ambitious ideas, yet it suffers from trying to do too much at once. The initial 30% of the novel is particularly challenging to get through, with frequent interruptions in the narrative flow by lengthy digressions into oyster and bird facts. While these details might have been intended to build atmosphere or contribute to the ecological horror, they end up breaking the story's momentum, making it difficult to stay engaged.

The characters, unfortunately, do not help the situation. Blas and Chango, two of the central figures, have a dynamic that shows potential, but their development is overshadowed by the constant shifts in perspective and the overwhelming focus on tangential details. The other characters fade into the background, becoming almost indistinguishable from one another, which further muddles the narrative.

Where "The Deading" does manage to shine is in its depiction of societal breakdown and the palpable sense of dread when the entity is present. These moments are genuinely terrifying and evoke the kind of horror that lingers. The disintegration of social order, the fear of the unknown, and the "us versus them" mentality are themes that resonate powerfully, and Belardes captures the eerie atmosphere of Baywood with skill.

However, the book's structure undermines its strengths. The disjointed narrative, combined with the lack of clear transitions between points of view, makes for a jarring reading experience. While some horror novels benefit from a fragmented or disorienting style, here it feels less like a deliberate choice and more like a story that lost its way.

In the end, "The Deading" is a novel brimming with potential that unfortunately falls short of delivering a cohesive and gripping tale. The elements of eco-horror, cosmic dread, and societal critique are all present but fail to coalesce into a satisfying whole. For readers who enjoy introspective, theme-heavy horror with a slow build, there may be something to appreciate here. However, those looking for a tightly woven, suspenseful narrative might find themselves disappointed.

I look forward to seeing how Nic Belardes' style evolves in future works, as there's clearly a passion for unique, thought-provoking horror. But for now, "The Deading" feels like an ambitious first draft in need of refinement.

First off, many thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this book as an e-ARC! I greatly appreciate it!

I usually take a peek at the star rating so far for ARCS out of curiosity, and I don't think I've ever come across a book that wasn't review-bombed getting less than a three star rating, but it wasn't review bombing. That super low rating is valid here. Considering the "an edgy twelve-year-old named it" title, I probably shouldn't be surprised. This wasn't good. The concept is amazing and the cover art is absolutely incredible, but the story makes very little sense. The writing goes back and forth between dry and clinical or informal to the point where it doesn't feel like a book at all, which was really jarring. Pick a tone! Its also really repetitive. The atmosphere was nice, though, I'll give it that much. Love me a seaside horror story.

The narrators did as good a job as they could with the source material, so don't blame them. They did fine.

Two stars out of five to the mess that is The Deading.

This book had so much potential but I feel like it fell a little flat. Under the Dome meets The Last of us is a big thing to achieve. Killer snails! Love it. But it didn’t really go anywhere. The birds! Could have came together really well but for me it didn’t. The deading started by the kids and then came across town like a plague didn’t feel very fleshed out.

The synopsis sounded so interesting...but I DNF'd this at 30%...it was SO BORING! The narrators were fine, but the story did not capture my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to an Advanced Listener's Copy (ALC) in exchange for my honest opinion/review.

I really wanted to give this book a chance, but in the end I just could not focus on it. It seems like the author was more focused on writing a book about birding with a few creepy happenings going on in the background, and nothing much interesting started happening until nearly to the middle of the book. I found it incredibly hard to focus on the book when it was going back and forth between characters I had very little care in, talking about birds for very little reason, only to talk about whatever was going on with the water very briefly. By the time it got around to the government cutting off the town, I was just tired of the prose style and the way this book was going, and just felt like I had more important things I could be doing. I feel like this book had potential, but that things just went off wherever they wanted to go with little effort to investigate or start explaining what was going on with the water, aliens??, or the deading that started. It was honestly very frustrating, because just when things were starting to get good, it would go back to the damn birds.

Review of “The Deading”

By: Nicholas Belardes

Available Now

Check it Out on Goodreads!!

Disclaimer: Please note that I received an Audible ARC from NetGalley and RBmedia, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

⭐⭐⭐☆☆

“The Deading” by Nicholas Belardes offers an intriguing premise with its eerie, dystopian setting and mysterious ocean-borne contagion. The story unfolds in a small fishing town where an infection causes residents to start “deading,” leading to societal collapse and the emergence of death-worshiping Risers. While the plot is captivating, the use of terms like “deading” and “risers” felt awkward and detracts from the overall experience.

The book’s multiple points of view add depth to the narrative, although some readers might find the story disjointed. I found the audio version to help differentiate perspectives, which kept me engaged despite the shifting viewpoints. Some chapters were more interesting than others, resulting in an uneven reading experience. While I enjoyed certain aspects of the book, it’s not something I would rush to revisit. “The Deading” is an interesting read for those who enjoy dystopian tales, but it may not resonate with everyone.

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Thank you RB Media & Nicholas Belardes for this listen!

The narration was excellent in this book. Multiple voices and perfect pacing. I felt I could see everything so vividly as the narrators made the authors words come to life.

This book was strange and unique. It was different compared to what I expected but that wasn't exactly a bad thing. Some graphic imagery and the terrifying idea of something taking over humanity was great. The author has written in alot of detail and it makes it even more realistic. Multiple POVs kept it really interesting!

I did find it talked alot about birds, which matched in with the character, however during this time i did seem to zone out. The other thing was the first 30% was pretty slow and it didn't hook me as much.

Overall this was a good read! Unique premise, with a terrifying ideas and very realistic reactions from society that I can imagine happening.

This one was weird, but I think that was the point. Honestly it would make a cool movie. Narration was good, I always enjoy multiple voices.