Maeve is living her best life as the granddaughter of a Hollywood icon. She works as a theme park fairytale princess with her bestie Kate, an aspiring actress. Kate’s big brother, a hockey-playing hottie comes to town just as Maeve’s magical castle world begins to crumble.

MAEVE FLY is one heck of a wild ride, living up to its cool and chaotic cover. While Maeve is a wild card, even her boldest actions are well-modified and make sense for her character.

I adored how her affinity for Halloween, the Los Angeles setting, and her job played out perfectly in the plot. The various cats, the eyeball references, and Maeve’s reading material complemented the wonderful world, providing plenty of opportunities for dark humor. Maeve’s reverence for her comatose grandmother is heartbreaking.

While the story provided a supremely satisfying ending, I found myself craving more of Maeve’s murderous audacity. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a sequel.

For me, MAEVE FLY was a four and a half star read, rounded up to five.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

A shocking slice of life story following a truly horrific human being. Disturbing and intriguing Maeve Fly will keep you guessing about what Maeve might do next. This gruesome story is not for the fainthearted. CJ Leede has surprised me and I look forward to seeing what else they bring us.

Thank you to Tornightfire and CJ Leede for the ARC of Maeve Fly.

This is in my top favorite reads of the year. Maeve Fly is the granddaughter to the Tallulah Fly, an once actress and hollywood royalty. By day Maeve is working as a Disney princess alongside her best friend Kate, but by night she gives into her disturbing desires.

Then he world is tipped upside down by a series of events that sets the one thing in Maeve she has been taught her entire life to hide.

With the setting of LA during the weeks before Halloween, this novel is deeply disturbing, entertaining and entirely jaw dropping by the end. Highly recommend

4.5/5 rounded up!

"There are no spoilers in life. If you are observant and pragmatic, the endings of all things are easily predictable. In the most basic terms, human life is always punctuated with death. It does not cheapen the buildup to know it. There are many winding paths to an inevitable end, and there is so much beauty and pain in the watching."

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

When I say this book took me by storm, I mean it quite literally. I am still dipping my toes into the horror genre and this is the very first "extreme horror" novel I have read. I have been trying to expand my horizons and decided that a rare thunderstorm was the perfect setting to begin reading Maeve Fly.

I have been in quite the reading slump lately and I found myself flying through this book.

The Hollywood setting, the cleverly referenced Disney princesses, the moody characters and atmospheres, all tied up with a horrifying and tragic love story... it was brilliant! I often felt that I needed to connect with characters to connect with a book. While I (thankfully) do not connect with Maeve, CJ Leede does such a fantastic job at making you FEEL connected to her story and struggles of being just a bit different and ill-suited to the world around her. So much so, in fact, that when she finally flips her switch, you're kind of rooting for her.

My one, very minor, gripe is that I wish we got even more of Gideon and Maeve because there seemed to be more there than the reader got to fully witness.

As this is extreme horror, please note that there are a lot of graphic and disturbing scenes, so please tread lightly if that may be upsetting for you.

"I have never understood, and still do not understand the notion that a woman must first endure a victimhood of some sort— abandonment, abuse, oppression of the patriarchy— to be monstrous."

Maeve Fly is a difficult one to rate. It’s so much more than just a horror novel. There is definitely horror. And some romance. And some loneliness. And then overarching is a tad weird and disturbing, but that’s what we like, right? I had a fun time with this one. You get nods to other novels / horror characters. There is a bit of a lull near the beginning where you question what exactly is happening or when the fun will start. But when it really gets going, you’re in for a twisted little ride. I can’t say it’s entirely original as I feel like I’ve heard similar tales, but it’s got its own spin and worth the read. Thank you Net Galley & Tor Publishing for the chance to read and review

Be forewarned, this book is graphic: there are many scenes (often fairly long in length) of torture and sexual content. This is blurring the line between a traditional horror novel and splatterpunk.
No one in the novel is a likeable character, and I am definitely okay with that. I was very drawn into this story of Maeve, a Hollywood Legacy, and how she gets away with very devious behavior. No one around Maeve really seems to be a good person either, from the romantic interest to her BFF. We end up just seeing the bad in them, which is maybe why they work so well together.
Something did feel a bit off with the pacing, with the ending especially seeming a bit rushed. However I am not sure whether a novel much longer than its current length would have worked for the content.

Set in a modern LA wasteland, 20-something year old Maeve Fly loses everything she loves- her best friend, her Disneyland job, and her dear grandmother. The more Maeve loses, the more detached from reality she becomes, and the closer to madness she creeps. Maeve is horrifying and beautiful, vindicated and remorseless, and completely fucking unhinged. Maeve Fly juxtaposes the beauty and class of old Hollywood glamour with the horror of girl-inflicted gore. Maeve gives millennial anti-heroine vigilante energy and I’m here for it.

Maeve Fly is one of my favorite books so far this year and definitely and all-time favorite! This is a story of love and loss sprinkled with pure insanity. The storyline’s a trip, details are gruesome and gross, yet easy to read. In fact, I was enthralled. The characters are all pretty interesting in their own respects and I either hated or loved them all. I’ve seen this described as “extreme horror”, but I wouldn’t go that far. I think the level of violence and gore is appropriate for a horror novel. I love the combo of LA/Hollywood/Halloween/slasher themes mixed with modern Disney princess references. The music references are cool too. I think this would more specifically suit people familiar with modern pop-culture, specifically dark pop-culture. If you like Halloween and Bikini Kill, you’ll love this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

Why should women have to have trauma in order to be evil? Why do women have to have some sort of character arc to make them monsters? Men are able to just be evil. To get away with hurting women and not have to worry about a backstory. Maeve Fly ponders this as she descends into madness.

I am not quite sure what to rate this book because it had an impact on me I’m not sure of yet. I recently read American Psycho back in October. The major themes of the book are still fresh in my mind. Maeve has been compared to the woman counterpart of Patrick Bateman and I can see why. Not only does she get inspiration from Bateman’s story in the second half of the book, we can see her slowly crack under her persona like Bateman did.

Maeve Fly works at the happiest place on Earth. She dresses up as an ice queen that everyone knows and loves with her best friend Kate as her costumed sister. Kate dreams of getting a part in a major motion picture and settles on the theme park until she can make her big break. One day, Kate’s rich hockey player brother moves to town and something in Maeve is finally able to come to life. The wolf her grandmother told her to keep chained away is broken free. Her grandmother is Talulah Fly, an old Hollywood actress who has shown Maeve how to keep the dark parts of herself hidden from the world.

I will say while the torture was graphic, it wasn’t as shocking as American Psycho. Maeve even gets inspiration from *ahem* THAT scene in the book, but it still wasn’t the same. Isn’t it interesting how Maeve felt troubled to me while Patrick Bateman just felt psychotic? Neither have backstory or reason, yet the circumstances still feel different.

I love a good female rage story. Getting revenge on those who’ve wronged them. The end had me a little sad for some reason. My brain wanted to feel sad for Maeve even though she doesn’t deserve it, right? It’s a complicated set of emotions the author throws at us. I applaud this being a debut book. More like this can come out and I will devour them all without question.

(I will not however, forgive for the eggs. That made me cringe but I loved how uncomfortable and awkward it felt)

Meet Maeve Fly. By day, she works as the beloved ice princess at a popular Los Angeles theme park. By night, she lives with her bedridden grandmother, a former Hollywood starlet, listens to Halloween music, and indulges in her love of depraved literature. The story follows Maeve from this point of stasis in her life, as she begins to acknowledge and eventually embrace her darkest tendencies.

And when I say Maeve has some dark tendencies, I mean they are dark. After spending the first third of the book crafting a fascinating character study of a peculiar, slightly unhinged young woman, C.J. Leede lets loose as Maeve becomes completely unraveled, lacing her narrative with scenes of graphic violence and sex and gore. This is extreme horror, and comparisons to American Psycho are completely apt (in fact Maeve acknowledges that she draws much of her inspiration from Patrick Bateman). Maeve is also obsessed with Story of the Eye, so if you're familiar with either of those works, that should give you a pretty good idea of the direction things take.

Despite the graphic content, there is something kind of...fun about Maeve Fly. It's darkly funny and witty, especially in the first third of the book as Leede is developing Maeve's character. There's something so appealing about Maeve's princess side juxtaposed with her psychopath side. And then, as the narrative becomes increasingly violent, there is a surreal, absurdist aspect to it all that isn't fun, exactly, but is definitely fascinating. This is all set against the backdrop of a Los Angeles portrayed without its veneer of sunshine and success, as a deranged princess stalks her prey through palm-littered streets. It's so disturbing and bizarre and compulsively readable and weirdly wonderful.

Maeve Fly is not a book for the faint of heart, but if you can handle incredibly graphic descriptions and hardcore horror elements, I think you'll enjoy your time with it. I'm definitely curious to read whatever Leede writes next, because what could she possibly write after this over-the-top debut?! Thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the early reading opportunity.

Thank you @netgalley for this ARC!

I genuinely went into this book blind (how I prefer) and didn't know what quite to expect. This book had a strong reference to Disney as the main character Maeve works as a princess actor, but the princess she is NOT. Twisted and intertwined with her need to kill, Mauve is inconveniently burdened with her ill gran, the famous Tallulah Fly despite her warped days and the events that follow.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the digital ARC!

Maeve Fly is a WILD ride, a heartfelt homage to psychological and body horror classics and golden age era Hollywood.

I was sucked in from the very first page. It is, however, a slow burn, and that took some getting used to, but the character development and well-executed social commentary was worth it in the end. The novel had me think "Good for her" in the most unhinged moments of the story.

It is a very good debut novel that pays a lot of attention to detail and that is something I can appreciate. Although the pacing was a little off during the 25 to 50% mark, I enjoyed my time and the ending was worth the build-up!

Maeve Fly… where do I start? First off I’m a sucker for a creepy cover and this one is 😍 Anyways, I loved this book. While the beginning is unremarkable, stick with it because it’s really setting the mood. Maeve is a disturbed young woman living with her grandmother who is on palliative care in Los Angeles. She’s estranged from her parents and the only person she really has to talk to is her best friend and co-worker Katie. Katie is an aspiring actress who will do whatever and whoever it takes to make it, and it seems like she no longer has much time for Maeve. But Katie’s hot brother Gideon does…

Maeve isn’t really interested in Gideon at first, but damn if he isn’t persistent. When the two spark a friendship, Maeve loses track of time and finds she’s neglecting her comatose grandmother’s needs as well as her job. Her life starts to unravel and she decides to regather herself in an awfully morbid way, but I was here for it. The ending made me sad, but I also liked it because I’m weird 🫠 CJ Leede is definitely staying on my radar and I did see that she has two more books in the works with Tor Nightfire so I’m pretty excited for that. Thanks to the author and publisher for my review copy. Maeve Fly will be published 6/6.

“A provocative debut that is both a blood-soaked love letter to Los Angeles and a gleeful send-up to iconic horror villains, Maeve Fly will thrill fans of My Heart is a Chainsaw and Caroline Kepnes’ You series.”


This book has everything: eggs, Halloween music, Johnny Depp (90% sure), certain princesses from a franchise I can’t afford to mention, hanging eyeballs


Apparently, my favorite thing is to make mortal enemies out of fictional book characters, and Maeve Fly is no exception. Just like American Psycho is a satire of men in corporate life, I'm sure Maeve Fly is a satire of something. How manic-pixie-dream-girl of her to sit at “hole in the wall” bars on the LA strip and read her book, and how out of touch trust fund kid of her to have a job at a theme park for fun and criticize everyone like they are beneath her. And she loves Halloween! Wow! How unique of her to base her entire personality off of the second most popular holiday in the United States. It's a wonder how someone so critical of everyone could fall in love with a dude who has the personality of a donut. All it took was a few soft-boiled eggs and a fog machine for her to become the biggest pick-me for Gideon. With that being said, I love a “down for my people” psychopath who will do anything for their loved ones. And the revenge spree? Chef’s kiss!


I really enjoy the last third of the book, when the madness truly started. The sexual violence was a bit much for me, but the rest of her rampage was done in true 80s slasher film fashion.I like how Maeve’s delusions slowly unraveled toward the end, and it wasn’t the predictable HEA I was expecting.


If you love extreme horror, you’ll love this! (It’s especially suiting for people who are also into dark romance AND horror)


I’m eager to see what C.J. Leede will come up with next!


Thank you NetGalley, Tor Publishing Group, Tor Nightfire, and Macmillan Audio for the digital ARC & ALC. A special thanks to C.J. Leede! All opinions are my own.

The first 40% of the book felt like a crawl. It took a long time to establish who Maeve is and how she thinks. The middle is gore and sexual violence with some scenes that did not need to be included to move the story forward. Then the last 20% of the book was really good! The pacing was much faster at the end, but felt right.

First person writing makes it seem like there is not a lot a personality to the writing. Maeve came off boring and nonchalant. We are told she loves her grandma (which is why she snaps) yet the flashbacks in the beginning did not read as heartwarming or a close connection so I was confused on why she cared so much all of a sudden. The synapsis states that when she meets Gideon, her coworker Kate's brother, that something awakens. Which is not true as the scene we get early on of how she unwinds at home after works shows that she was unhinged from the start. The scene of Maeve and Gideon with another women felt unnecessary. It was too early into them being together and just made Maeve seem insane and Gideon was not phased at all which made no sense due to the ending.

The time she works a theme park was somewhat interesting to read but I know too much about theme parks as I worked at one. So that made a good chunk of this book read like a creepy pasta. A decent amount of stuff that happened at her work would never have been allowed or even possible. Any type of bleeding at work is a biohazard that is taken seriously.

Overall, it was just not for me. It's a messed up story with an unlikable main character that I just could not root for. It gets 3 stars as the ending was written very well. As this is the author's first book, I am interested to see how her writing will be in the future.

“We all seek the dream of beauty even as we know fundamentally it is only a façade for the decaying in the dark.”

There are so many things to enjoy about Maeve Fly, so many things to devour. While Maeve does have a little of the “not like other girls'' trope, the way in which she is “not like other girls'' is so unique and extreme. I’m not sure we (as in society) would want other women to be like her. I mean there are snippets of her attitude as well as her lessons from her grandmother that are useful. My favorite being “People will try to take what belongs to you. As soon as you possess something worth possessing, someone else will inevitably emerge from the crevices to worm their way in to try and steal it.” But, and trust me on this, we would want to sift through Maeve’s character and personality with a fine tooth comb to find the bits of “good.”

Maeve is an amazingly complex character. She is young and unsure about life while being a complete sociopath and serial killer. Somehow she comes off vulnerable although she can not understand the emotions and actions of others. I found myself rooting for her throughout the entire book. I enjoyed reading about her daily life and interactions with others.

I also really appreciated Maeve’s love for Los Angeles. The way the author describes LA is definitely from the perspective of someone who was either born and raised in LA or someone who moved there and understands LA at its core. When tourists think of LA, I imagine glitz and glamor is what they think of, but LA is multifaceted. As someone who lives in Southern California, I have a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles. It is dirty, congested, and hell to get into, around , and out of. But, it is so full of culture, great food, great sites, and a superb amount of entertainment from the lower echelons to the highest. As Maeve explains, it is “the grime and the shine together.”

Grime and shine can also be applied to a couple of the supporting characters. Outside of Maeve (and her infinitely interesting grandmother Tallulah), there is Kate and her brother Gideon. This was where my interest in the story plateaus. Neither Kate not Gideon are as enticing a character as Maeve or Tallulah. Kate is a “typical” aspiring actress who moved to LA to become a star. She portrays all the negative aspects of that stereotype. She is shallow and self-centered, which may actually be just the kind of friend Maeve needs and deserves. However, she is replaceable, making her fit the aspiring actress stereotype even more. Her brother Gideon, though, is the ultimate in the “taking of the cake.”

Gideon. Hmmm, Gideon. Ugh, Gideon. He could have been such an fascinating character, but he comes off as a total douchebag. He is a typical looking and acting jock. He takes a sexual interest in Maeve, and right off the bat just comes off as not being good enough for Maeve. It’s the approach. It’s all in the approach man. Gideon is set up as a love interest for Maeve, and this causes Maeve to go through a crisis of consciousness, or what I like to call the “Dexter Method.” She begins to question who she is and what she wants out of life. I felt like this storyline weakened the plot a little. How, you ask?

Maeve’s entire narration is built on the idea of women not needing a reason to be “bad.” If she’s a serial killer, then she’s a serial killer because that’s who she is, not because she went through some kind of tragedy and has been changed. “We are what we are what we are.” But, she proceeds to change her life because of some guy she just met. Best friend’s brother or not, that’s a jump, especially for Gideon. He put his number in Maeve’s cellphone under the name “Kate’s Hot Brother” for crying out loud.

Regardless of my straight up dislike for Gideon, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Maeve’s adventures. The compare and contrast of personalities between Maeve and Kate and Maeve and Tallulah really helped to identify who Maeve is. I also appreciated all the Disneyland references and innuendo. The violence and gore were also top notch. Had me mouthing “Eww” and caressing my temples.

4 / 5 soft-boiled eggs

Eww!!

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for providing me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I first learned of this book on a list of upcoming horror releases. There were references to Disney princesses and American Psycho, and I’ll admit I was cautiously intrigued. My horror reading is pretty limited to King, but I like a good realistic serial killer horror book, and it didn’t disappoint on that level…but boy was this a doozy! Good storyline and pace, but be warned, the violence and the sex sees the line into mature content and rides a vintage mustang right past it into some weird stuff. The Pretty Pretty Princess game will never be the same. There were a few times I thought I’d have to quit, but I had to know what happened! I did appreciate that we get a sadistic female main character, as most main characters in horror are male. Which the story itself makes a point to talk about. I didn’t love the ending, in some weird way, I wanted Maeve to get her own version of a Happily Ever After even though I know how messed up that is! If there was a sequel, I’d probably read it because I want to know what happens next!

Overall, a good quick horror read, but be warned… it’s pretty messed up.

Summary:
By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess.

By the neon night glow of the Sunset Strip, Maeve haunts the dive bars with a drink in one hand and a book in the other, imitating her misanthropic literary heroes.

But when Gideon Green - her best friend’s brother - moves to town, he awakens something dangerous within her, and the world she knows suddenly shifts beneath her feet.

Untethered, Maeve ditches her discontented act and tries on a new persona. A bolder, bloodier one, inspired by the pages of American Psycho. Step aside Patrick Bateman, it’s Maeve’s turn with the knife.

My Thoughts: This was everything I was hoping for and more. Make sure to read content warnings as this book contains many. I found it fascinating to see the main character unravel deeper into madness but through it all her intentions were good.

I still cannot put my finger on Maeve Fly. Maeve is the 20-something grandchild to an Old Hollywood starlet, living in LA and working as a princess at Disneyland. She's also a murderous psychopath. She's able to keep herself in check, for the most part, until she meets her best friend's brother, Gideon, an NHL player with his own inner demons. As her time spent with Gideon increases and her Grandmother's health declines, Maeve slowly descends into her inner darkness and embraces her depravity.

This book was a hockey romance shoved into an ode to LA shoved into the mind of a privileged psychopath princess. Maeve was such an unlikeable yet fun protagonist, with a clear voice and unwavering personality. I loved the first third of the book. It was witty and funny and dark and suspenseful. The middle felt as if it were a different book entirely, focusing on character development and backstory as opposed to the creep factor that hooked me in the first act. The final act was a complete 180, rushing through one graphic scene after another until we stumbled into some sort of ending. Ultimately, the book felt like a Frankenstein of ideas that really really wanted people to think it was smart and edgy and cool.

Nonetheless, I am still thinking about it. I flew through it and had fun. I laughed and gasped and cringed. And I'll never look at a soft-boiled egg the same way again.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for this eARC!

Generally speaking, if a book has a corresponding playlist I avoid it like the plague. I get embarrassed for some reason, especially if the music is bad. And I absolutely will not play a song as it’s mentioned in a scene to “set the mood”. It’s not my vibe.

Until, that is, Maeve came along.

Maeve Fly is your favorite ice princess by day at The Most Expensive Place on Earth, but inside she’s anything but chill. Maeve, you see, is a f*cking lunatic.

When I tell you there were multiple times during the last 100 pages that I was so disgusted and horrified, BELIEVE ME. When I tell you that when the book ended I cried the most confused tears of my life, BELIEVE ME. This book took me on one of the most insane journeys I’ve been on this year. Part of me wants to read it again immediately because during the latter half of it I felt like I was in a hazy fever dream NIGHTMARE and don’t know how much I actually processed. This was only assisted by the playlist in question, a mix of campy Halloween tracks and Billie Holiday, that made it more tangible somehow.

Definitely check triggers, but if a pretty girl deciding to Let it Go and cut her tenuous ties with humanity appeals to you, check her out. She won’t disappoint.

Maeve Fly releases on June 6th.

Thanks to @netgalley and @tornightfire for providing me a copy of this nightmare in exchange for my honest feedback.

4/5. ✨

This book was so gross and I loved it! Maeve is an awful, evil person, but similar to Joe Goldberg from the You series, you can't help but root for her. There were lots of nods to classic horror tropes in this book, which I really enjoyed. The juxtaposition of Maeve's inner dialogue and the fact that she works at Disney was absolutely hilarious. I think you definitely need to have a strong stomach and not be easily bothered to enjoy this book; luckily I am not!