I really liked the characters and their relationships. Kept me guessing. I did enjoy the whole world and it reminded me of the pandemic meets zombies in a fun and fresh way. I would recommend this YA novel. It’s a fun read.

I was kindly gifted this ARC by @sourcebooksfire through @netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Firstly, I liked that this book had flash backs which set the story up and explained how the pandemic started which turned some people into ghouls. I think I would’ve preferred if the book was sectioned in two parts, before and after pandemic or when it first started and then current time, as I felt sometimes it was a bit jumpy going back and forth constantly with flashbacks. I am still quite new to the horror genre, so this did make me a little freaked out at some points so I think if you are new to the genre this is a good entry point. I LOVED the LGBTQIA+ representation especially as the book is aimed at YA! Overall, I enjoyed some bits of the book but felt others dragged so overall I rate it:

3⭐️

This Delicious Death was a very fun spooky read. It was gory, a little funny and downright crazy at times. If you're into modern zombies (in this case ghouls) attending a music festival (think Coachella) with a bit of love interest thrown in then you'll love this book. I appreciated the very unique concept of this book and enjoyed the premise a lot. the main character, Zoey was intriguing and reminded me of myself in High School. I also loved Celeste but the other two girls tended to be a little infuriating for me at times. Some of the execution and plot fell a little flat for me. I found there to be a bit of fluff in the beginning and not a whole lot of explanation of some important plot points. I also found the love triangle situation to be pretty out of place for a thriller about zombies (reminded me of warm bodies but not as clearly a love story). I also still don't really get the whole villain part of the storyline, it just didn't feel fully believable. Overall, this is a fun read. Id recommend it as a palate cleanser type book where you can just get lost in a modern zombie world for a few hundred pages.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley of allowing me to read this ARC

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for this ARC!

Let me start off by saying... I love a good cannibalisms moment. We just don't get enough of those.

This was a cutie lil queer cannibalism, zombie music festival weekend. We have girls flirting with boys in bands. We have girls flirting with girls. We have girls eating boys in bands. Overall, tons of fun and excitement.

This one was interesting to say the least. It isn't a book I'll pick up again, but I enjoyed reading it the first time! I'm interested to see what else Kayla Cottingham puts out.

While I love the ideas behind the plot -- a very creative twist on the zombie apocalypse, the writing itself didn't flow as easily as I hoped. There was a lot of "tell the reader" instead of allowing the story to show the reader, as well as some paragraphs that didn't work stylistically for me in the level of detailed descriptions. However, others may find this works well with what they love to read, or that the twisty apocalyptic plot is enough to hook them.

Jennifer's Body meets Coachella in this beautifully terrifying novel!

Kayla Cottingham has been on my list to read for a long time, so when I was granted this Arc (thank you Netgalley and Sourcebooks) I done in headfirst.

And how glad I am! This novel truly grips you from page one and keeps you interested and invested through the wittiest of humor and the cringiest of horror sequences for the rest of the novel!

'This Delicious Death' feels timely and important, but also di=oesn't take itself too seriously and allows the reader time to get lost in the humor and modern day living before ripping your heart out (literally and metaphorically!

A dazzling new take on the zombie infection trope, This Delicious Death not only creates a new creature mythology, it also gives the reader four young women from various backgrounds each with their own unique desires and personalities that you just can’t help but relate to. The mark of a good book, it was hard to put down as I read it with a hunger to rival the characters’ own. The descriptions were just the right amount of horrifying with a brilliant love story between two best friends who prove time and again that they’ll always be there for each other. Full of queer and bipoc representation, this book was everything I hoped for and more.

What was suppose to be a pre-graduation celebration turns into a cannibalistic bloodfest.

Horror and romance has always seemed like an odd combination to me, but Kayla Cottingham has made me reevaluate the combination of the two. With every page the plot is going oh, so wrong, but then the romance makes everything oh, so right. I was on the edge of my seat!

This is a must read if you love YA about music festivals, cis bi MC X trans bi LI, best friends to lovers trope, and girls who eat flesh. Though this book has zombies (or ghouls) it doesn't read like a horror, it's hilarious. I definitely got Jennifer's Body with iZombie vibes with a touch of Warm Bodies.

We follow 4 ghouls to a music festival and a ghoul goes feral. Chaos ensues, naturally. I like how the Hollowing began is explained throughout the book, being interlaced with the overall plot. The story is romantic, sad, and thrilling. It's a cannibal love story and it's a fast read!

It also has an interesting take on family and friends. If you changed into something out of your control (like becoming a ghoul due to the government/climate change/ icebergs melting) you would learn who your family and friends really are. Would they welcome you home or would they not want anything to do with you? Would they consider you a deadly monster? It made me wonder. This book is realistic af, that's the scary part!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for giving me an ebook in exchange for an honest review.

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.

I really liked the description of this book and the premise is really fun. I just couldn't get past how unlikable the main character is.
In a world with living ghouls (who are fine in society as long as they keep up with their syn flesh diet), four ghoul girl teens go on a vacation before graduation. Something is wrong though as one of the girls goes feral and kills someone. The girls realize that someone is drugging the ghouls and they need to find out who.
The main character Zoey is overly blunt and dramatic. A boy tries to shake her hand in greeting and she says she's being "accosted". There were also multiple statements that seemed more like pointed messages that didn't really flow with the story. I just kept feeling like I was being taken out of the story and then I was done with Zoey's attitude.

I appreciate the chance to read this book and would try more from the author in the future, this one just wasn't for me.

I would not include in my 8th grade library but do think some high school students would be interested in the book. The diet of the characters…ewww…

3.5/5.

"this delicious death" is my first book by this author. normally i can't stand zombie stories--the whole genre is generally just so overdone at this point that it's boring. however, i was very intrigued by cottingham's take on it. plus, a queer trans girl as the love interest? heck yes. i hadn't expected the mystery aspect of the plot (i'd assumed it would be more of a mass, chaotic, free-for-all type situation), which was a nice surprise. at times it gave me some "this mortal coil" vibes, which i think is understandable.: virus that makes you eat people, it's mystery, a science dad, there's a dude named cole...

it does get pretty gory at times, so if you're easily squicked out, use caution. usually it only goes on for a few paragraphs at most, so one could always just skim over those bits.

overall, i would recommend this to those who like horror fiction, especially if they would like to see a different angle to the zombie trope, and for fans of this mortal coil

thank you to netgalley and sourcebooks fire for the ARC!

Trans sapphic lovers, cannibalism, weird monsters and the campest vibes! This was such a wonderfully hilarious and horror filled read

I was initially drawn to the cover of this book as I haven’t read anything previously by this author.

Two years prior, a deadly virus changed the lives of those infected, the exposed soon learned they craved the taste of human flesh.

In order to create a more humane society “Synflesh” aka a substitute for human flesh was created. This aspect reminded me a bit of the “Tru Blood” drinks in the True Blood series which I thought was a cool touch.

The story focuses around Zoey and friends, a bunch of “ghouls” who want to celebrate their graduation at a musical festival in the middle of the desert but of course things go wrong the first night!

I found the group of girls likeable and appreciated that the author allowed each character to have their moment when it came to backstories which were intertwined in various parts of the book.

This is a YA book but I didn’t find that the prose was overly young.

There’s elements of comedy, gore and friendships which made for a fun read and would make for a great series.

Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me the arc to read!

iZombie & Resident Evil fans rejoice, because if you liked either of those series you are destined to fall madly in love with Kayla Cottingham's newest novel.

This Delicious Death is the trans love story I needed to start 2023 with! It is filled with gore, monster hunting, hilarity, and just enough mystery solving that any readers across genres are sure to be entertained.
Although this may be marketed perhaps more towards YA, I definitely felt this story transcended those lines and feel it's a great adventure for any age.

Somewhere in our near future, humanity went through the Hollowing, an experience that left many people craving (yes you guessed it) flesh. However, in true innovative fashion, SynFlesh becomes available to help those who became Hollowed. However, when a group of friends attending a festival start to lose control of their appetites, they know something or someone must be causing it.

This book is funny, adorable, scary, and just a great novel. And did I mention one of the main characters is trans?! I loved it and I really think you will too!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this! It was gory, but also very sweet. I loved the Hollow people, they are such an interesting concept and absolutely lived up to my horror expectations. I also really loved the relationship between Zoey and Celeste, they were so cute together. The oblivious pining on both ends and the one bed trope were amazing. The story itself was full of action and I loved the mystery aspect of it.

Overall, a 4.5 star read which I recommend to everyone that loves horror and girls falling into love.

This book really infuriated me. Before you even start the book there were two pages of content warnings. Which like if you are going to have two pages of content warnings; you need to tame your book down. Especially since this is a YA book. The over all story was extremely weird to me. I can’t find a single thing I liked about this book other than the over. This book sounded like it was going to be good. But it was god awful. I would not suggest.

*This review contains very minor spoilers*
4.5 stars because I did love this book, but it got a little slow for me somewhere between the beginning and the middle.
I really enjoyed this book! I loved that at the beginning of each chapter there was a little section about life before the Hallowing because this is what truly made me connect to the characters and love them more.
I'm normally not the type of person to get grossed out or scared from anything horror or gory, but this book definitely made me uneasy sometimes because I quickly grew to care about the characters and I could almost feel their emotions when they were distraught. This also makes for an interesting read after a global pandemic lol
Overall, this is such an interesting concept and I really enjoyed the execution. Also there are queer and trans characters, which always make a story better!