I had a great time reading this one! In the present, four zombie friends are attending a music festival, but we get flashbacks to how each of them became a zombie. They each have a different relationship with their families and you get to see how their biological changes have impacted their friendships and relationships and how they're coping. It felt like the story had a lot of heart. If I had any complaint, it's that we never learn what specifically caused the zombie apocalypse. I would love a prequel!

There's also a mystery to solve throughout the course of the story. I thought it was all unpredictable and exciting. There's a great cast of characters and I loved how the romances played out. As much fun as the fangirling over musicians and the zombie disaster were, it always came back to the characters and their bonds.

This book felt like a mix of Resident Evil horror and iZombie camp. I had a blast and would recommend it to anyone who's a fan of the horror genre, whether on the scary or the fun side.

I appreciated the idea for this story, and I really liked the focus on the friendships. The user of flashbacks throughout added meaning and characterization. The story felt a little rushed at times, and so sometimes it felt a little superficial.

This book was a 3 and 1/2 stars for me. I loved where the story was headed and the characters, but there were just a few things that left me uneasy. I felt like the author was trying to be really inclusive but missed some big opportunities. I almost got the impression that Cottingham was trying to downplay some of it because it's YA. But in reality, YA is categorized this way a lot because of the age of the characters. In addition to this, I feel like the ending was rushed. I remember thinking that there was no way it could wrap everything up in the amount of pages left and when the story did, it felt very rushed.

All this being said, it honestly has one of the best opening lines of a book I've read! And it really is fun summer read about some ghouls having a last hurray before graduation. And maybe a little bit of murder.

Here's that catching first line:
"When my parents asked if I wanted a Mini Cooper for graduation, I didn’t think ahead to whether or not it would have enough trunk space to accommodate my cooler full of organs." - This Delicious Death, pg. 1

3.5 stars

I really liked the premise of this, an ancient virus releasing and turning people into ghouls, or 'hollow people' is pretty awesome. Then life somehow goes on and the afflicted are integrated back into society, eating synthetic flesh and organs to keep the hunger at bay. I was fully on board with the story.

I also appreciated that the main characters were LGBTQ+ and pretty diverse. It was great rep and I enjoy a sweet wlw romance. We also got to see everyone's back story of how they were infected and became a friend group and the world was well described.

The story moved a little slowly at times and then the last twenty percent shoved all the action and answers in. I think it could have been more spread out so it wasn't as rushed and the ending wrapped up a bit too nicely for me after all that went down.

This is a fun, gory story with a cool spin on monsters. Definitely worth checking it out!

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book. All opinions are my own. Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire and NetGalley for the copy.

This is my first book by this author, it’s rather good. It’s different, which we all like, and it’s aimed at the younger folk around us…. But I actually enjoyed it.
The story has been well thought out, it’s gripping, with plenty of blood, and a bit of romance shoved in there.

I’ve given This delicious death a 3.4 out of 5

Sapphic horror is quickly becoming one of my favorite things to read. This young adult book is about four friends, fresh out of high school, who are headed to a music festival. But things are not as simple as enjoying the music. A recent pandemic has turned some of the population into ghouls. And, a mysterious thing is changing the ghouls who attend the the festival into something worse. Honestly, the premise creates an interesting setting that highlights how it can feel to be part of the lgbtq+ community with out making that the cause of the sickness. The main characters are diverse and different, v and highly recommend for those who like they lgbtq or ya reads to be a little on the dark side.

This book takes place a few years after the Hollowing, where people got sick from a contagion and suddenly found themselves needing to eat human flesh to survive. Scientists create a synthetic food for ghouls to consume and it allows them to live out their lives as they normally would, though there is some prejudice against ghouls. Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine become friends after all of them become ghouls during the Hollowing and now after graduation they are taking a summer trip to a music festival. At first the festival starts off as a fun time, but it seems like ghouls are acting strangely and people go missing. The friends realize there's something going on and people are being drugged on purpose. When Valeria starts to feel out of control, they begin to investigate and search for a solution to cure her. Overall, a fun quick read with a touch of horror that focuses on friendship and feeling comfortable with one's self.

I had so much fun with this! I think it does a really good job of setting up a horror / comedy setting that is indeed funny without taking away from the otherwise horrific imagery or the depth of the story.

I also think that it's a great novel for people to pick up when they're just starting to discover horror fiction. It really effectively showcases the relationship between queerness and monstrosity, which is in itself so central to the genre as a whole. It's laid out really obviously in this book, without however being too overtly simplistic. There's a lot of great passages that hit deep, especially as a queer person, with regards to the feeling of being ostracized, pushed to the outskirts of society, forced to announce and expose yourself "for the safety of others". I loved the whole allegory and it's definitely all that more effective with the main characters all being queer themselves.

Which leads me to the main group of girls: I loved them. I really did. I loved that they were all dealing with their "monstrosity" in very different ways. They had very different relationships with their sense of self as well as with other people around them. They viewed their ghoulishness through such different (and at times opposing) lenses. Once again, I think it tied in super well with the queer allegory and it made it really easy to fall in love with each one of them. Cottingham did a great job of diving into each of their backstories without dragging the worldbuilding along too much. And of course, I adored their friendship and the unconditional love they have for one another. It was super sweet and brought tears to my eyes more than once.

However, I will say that some of the book was a little too on the nose for me. The comparison to COVID was very clearly obvious, but I also feel like there wasn't much to be said about that specific theme. I don't know if the novel really added anything to the conversation and it did kind of feel like just a random nod the pandemic. Some of the passages read like "oh hey this is kinda like that thing we've all been living through the past few years! funny!" and it just felt kind of awkward. I would've appreciated just a bit more subtext or at least a more specific reason to have made the comparison in the first place.

And a lot of the elements brought up in the book (people wanting the ghouls to identify themselves in some obvious way so that "regular" people can protect themselves—even though it isn't contagious—, people claiming that ghouls are an abomination to god, parents disowning their ghoulish children) didn't really fit into the COVID narrative. In fact, to me, it would have made way more sense as an allegory for the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Actually, for a big chunk of the novel, I genuinely thought that was the point of the book. But based one what I've seen from Cottingham, their focus was really on COVID and I just don't know what the point of that general reference was.

All in all, I do absolutely recommend the novel, especially for readers who are new to the horror genre, and I had a lot of fun with it! But I do think there were some ideas that could have been better executed.

Source: NetGalley

I don’t think I’m the target audience for this. I love LGBTQ books, but I think it was too GenZ for me. I struggled my way through it, I just think that I couldn’t connect with the MC, but others might have no issue there! Just not for me.

I’m not sure I’m the target audience for this queer YA book as a straight woman in my early thirties but I found myself doing a lot of eyerolling while reading this novel. It’s trying SO hard to be relevant and current that I found myself cringing. I also felt like the all of the threads in this story were too conveniently linked. I liked the short flashback snippets and perspective shifts but felt like this book in general was lacking something to merit a higher rating.

This was fun! I thought that I had read books featuring just about every supernatural being out there but once I saw this book I realized that I had yet to pick up a book with main characters that were ghouls. I have read a book or two where ghouls are worked into this story but this was my first experience reading one where the ghoul took center stage and I must say that it was a very entertaining read. I am so glad that I took a chance and decided to give this book a try.

Zoey, Celeste, Jasmine, and Valeria became ghouls after the Hollowing swept the world. They can live a very normal life eating synthetic flesh and are excited to attend the first music festival since the Hollowing. Things don’t go according to plan and Val ends up eating a boy. The group soon learns that there is a more sinister plan in the works. I especially enjoyed the flashback scenes that gave the reader insight into how the change played out for each of the key characters.

I thought that the mystery in this story was very well done and I loved that the story kept me guessing until the end. I thought that the fact that the main characters were ghouls added a very interesting and original element to the story. I really liked all of the characters and appreciated the LGBTQ+ representation. The fact that there is a bit of romance worked into the story is just icing on the cake.

I would not hesitate to recommend this book to others. I found this book to be incredibly entertaining and almost impossible to put down once I started reading. I hope to read more of this author’s work in the future.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Sourcebooks Fire.

Three years ago, there was a pandemic now known as the Hollowing. People became intolerant to normal food and were only able to consume the flesh of other human beings. Now, four friends affected by the hollowing are living relatively normal lives and headed to a music festival with a cooler of SynFlesh (a synthetic version of human meat). What happens when people start ending up dead?

This book is so fun and campy! I thought it was a perfect blend of mystery, gore, and YA angst. It doesn't shy away from the cannibalism, but there's just the right amount of humor to balance it out. This book has great queer representation and I think it uses the prejudice towards those most affected by the hollowing to parallel the prejudice in today's society. I loved that the beginning of each chapter provided a different characters POV back in time during the hollowing. It allowed for great depth of character as well as a great understanding into how society as a whole was affected by the Hollowing. Otherwise, you'd likely think everyone had adapted very quickly and with a shocking lack of concern. Parts of the plot were a bit predictable and there are some conveniences, but that's really my only complaint. I'm so glad I had a chance to read this book!

This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham is a Queer YA thriller / horror. Following 4 hollow "zombie" girls as they attend a music festival in the desert as one last hooray before college starts. While one's trying to ignore her new-found romantic interest in her bestie, someone is dosing hollow's with something that turns them rabid. When one of the 4 is infected, the girls take it upon themselves to figure out what's going on before more lives are lost.

This book was simply fun. Yes, it was gory and descriptive when the girls' bloodlust takes over, but I was here for it. Think Queer Valley girls who just happen to ingest human blood instead of sushi lol Seriously though I was loving all the queer rep. Our main voice of the story is Zoey, whose bisexual, and she is deep in bi panic as she tries to avoid her crush on her bestie by redirecting her focus to a random boy who shows her attention. Next her childhood best friend and crush Celeste is transfemale and bisexual. Then ex-cheerleader Valeria is also bi and last but not least Jasmine is a lesbian, who was totally crushing on Val but that unfortunately never blossomed to more.

The present day story arc is told through the eyes of Zoey sprinkled with a few incident reports and flashbacks. The flashbacks were one of my favorite aspects of the story because it gave us the other three girls of the group's prospectivs. We saw what each one went through during the original outbreak as they become Hollows. I wish we had hear POVs more than that, but with 4 of them it might have become a bit too much. The romance portion of the story was slightly weaker than I wanted it to be, but it was overall sweet. The friendship bond between Celeste and Zoey made my heart happy.

This Delicious Death was a great Queer YA thriller that was extremely entertaining. Four ride or die best friends, a road trip, a cooler full of synthetic blood, music festival shenanigans, no name bands, sharing a bed with your crush, accidentally killing and eating of a boy, karma for the bad guys, and a satisfying ending for our group of besties!

I enjoyed this one. While the plot was a little simple for my tastes, the characters were diverse and adorably relatable—obviously, as gals who devour human flesh, particularly Jerkface boys—and I did like the Hollowing backstory. It definitely gave dark humor/mystery vibes, and followed through on that!


Thanks Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC version of this book. Opinions are my own!

What was known as The Hollowing happened two years ago turning a small group of the population into what would soon be known as ghouls. During that time the ghouls were locked away until scientists came up with something they could eat that was akin to human flesh. They came up Synflesh and as long as the ghouls maintain a steady diet of the product they can maintain a normal life just like everyone else. Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine all became ghouls during the Hollowing and are now the best of friends. They are all going to graduate soon so they decide to attend a musical festival before their lives take different paths. While at the festival Val goes feral and kills a boy who was part of one of the bands. They begin to realize that something isn't right, it looks like Val was dosed with something on purpose to make her turn feral. The girls know they must figure out what is going on so they can save Val as well as keep their much earned freedom. This was an intriguing take on ghouls and I enjoyed the way the author brought it all together.

This was a fun read! You definitely have to suspend belief because there are several pieces that don't entirely fit, but overall it was very enjoyable.

I liked getting the flashbacks to the beginning of the Hollowing as well as some of what got our characters where they are by this story. I would have liked just a little bit more from that though.

I will definitely recommend this one and I especially think teens will enjoy this.

I didn't think a book about queer teenage carnivores would be so funny! I knew I would like This Delicious Death from the opening line: "When my parents asked if I wanted a Mini Cooper for graduation, I didn't think ahead to whether or not it would have enough trunk space to accommodate my cooler full of organs."

This Delicious Death was a quick read for me -- honestly I could have read this in two sittings if I didn't need to go to bed at a descent time for work. I devoured the first half of this book (see what I did there), but somewhere after that it didn't hold the same appeal. Overall, this is a solid YA horror and I totally recommend you read it if you like stories about zombie/carnivores.

The story is a sci-fi horror version of a pandemic and in a way, a cautionary tale about climate change. I think pandemic type stories are cool, but after living through (and continuing to live with) COVID, this could bring up unwelcomed memories. So consider that for yourself before reading.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for sharing this digital reviewer copy in exchange for my honest review*

So what originally caught my attention for this book was the interesting take on the zombie genre. When I was much younger I had this fascination with all things zombies – I read all the books with zombies, watched all the movies with zombies, obsessed over TV shows about zombies – it was a thing. But then everyone seemed to also join the bandwagon and then media as a whole seemed too saturated with everything zombies. I took a step back and moved on to obsess over other things. Lately, though, I feel my love of zombies has been rekindled and I have found myself seeking out zombie things again.

This is a YA zombie book and therefore falls under the horror genre. The overall book does feel YA but remember, this is a ZOMBIE book and those parts of the book can get graphic for some readers. I didn’t find it overly graphic, but as I mentioned earlier – I was into zombies as a kid so not much phases me. This Delicious Death – would like to mention how much I love this title – is mostly told in first person POV. We follow Zoey as she and her three friends go to a Coachella-esq festival as a last trip before they head off to college. They’re all “ghouls” – what the zombies are called in this book – after a pandemic called the Hollowing left some people craving human flesh instead of food. Luckily some synthetic human flesh is created and our ghouls can walk among the living, so to speak, and live normal-ish lives again. At the festival, people start dropping like flies and the ghouls start losing control and it’s up to our four friends to figure out what’s happening.

Let’s talk characters! Like I mentioned before, our main POV is Zoey since we mostly follow her throughout the book. What Cottingham did at the beginning of every chapter was switch to third person POV and give us snippets of what happened to certain characters during the Hollowing – when they first turned into ghouls. I sometimes don’t like first person POVs just because I feel like we sometimes miss out on other characters. This was a great way to show readers what these characters went through during these snippets and I absolutely loved it! I understand why the book was mostly Zoey’s POV as it gives a narrow vantage point of the goings on and helps with the mood of the book but I think those snippets really outshined Zoey’s voice and I found myself looking forward to them. Zoey is our bi MC who is secretly (or not so secretly to some of her friends) in love with her bff Celeste. Celeste is our trans, bi influencer girlie whose make-up and outfit is always on point. Valeria (Latina and maybe queer?) and Jasmine (Black, lesbian) are our other members of the friend group. I really wished we would’ve gotten more about them because I found their stories during the hollowing super interesting and wanted more time spent with them. I did enjoy the budding romance between Zoey and Celeste (don’t want to give away too many spoilers here) and really liked the four girls’ friendship. The side characters felt a little one dimensional at times but I think that’s due to my issues with first person POVs – you’re just limited to what they think about the other characters. I really enjoyed the representation with LGBTQ+ and POC characters.

The overall story was interesting and I enjoyed this new take on the “zombie” genre. It was nice to see how this world dealt with the ghouls and their little problem of wanting to eat human flesh. I liked the little snippets of lore that was sprinkled in and that it wasn’t all a lore dumb at the beginning or in just one chapter. We slowly learned about what happened and how being ghouls affect their day to day lives. I loved the description of what they looked like when they fed – or their ghoul appearance – and how detailed it was when it got bloody. I could really visualize what was happening and loved every second of it. The mystery aspect of the book kept me hooked – but I did find it a little on the nose and obvious. I don’t want to spoil the plot but the pacing was good and never dragged for me and I got enough story unfolding in each chapter that I was curious to learn more.

I really enjoyed the fresh take on one of my favorite genres, the book was perfectly gruesome and horror-filled to satiate my love of all things macabre. The romance between the main characters was enjoyable and I loved the pining and yearning they did for one another. I loved the friendship and how willing they were to be there for one another – can you say ride or hide bodies for one another?! True friendship right there. I did find myself chuckling at the humor and I love me some dark humor and this book had it in spades.

I did have some issues with the one dimensional side characters and “baddies” and wished some parts of the plot weren’t so obvious. But none of that detracted from the overall enjoyment I got from reading it. I definitely would recommend this book if, like me, you love the zombie genre and want a fresh take on what used to be a saturated genre or if you just want to read about some sapphic characters just trying to survive being high school ghouls while trying not to eat people. You know – normal high school drama.

*Check out my podcast, Badass Literature Society, available wherever you listen to podcasts soon for an episode over this book!*

I probably shouldn’t have enjoyed this as much as I did.

It’s a fun, campy story. Silly, but also gruesome.

Just all-around fun and well done.

This is author Kayla Cottingham's second novel, a Sapphic YA Horror with strong LGBTQ+ Rep, including a protagonist who is Lesbian/Bi, her best friend who is a Trans Internet influencer, and their two other close friends. Not only are they bonded by friendship; they are fellow sufferer/survivors of "the Hollowing," a mysterious viral disease which struck the planet without warning, affecting some of the population but not all. This brings in the theme of "outsiders," as [just as German-Americans were ostracized and Japanese-Americans confined to interment camps during World War II, while brilliant American minds sociopathically plotted Eugenics strategies] many of the unaffected populace shunned even their own family members and demanded that the "ghouls" be transported to isolated areas, such as deserts, far away from the untouched. For safety's sake, of course.

This condemnation of "outsiders" is of course also reflected in the lives which our protagonists live, as individuals and friends who don't always adhere to the views of the majority. Compounding this is their status as sufferers of "the Hollowing," so that their tight-knit unending friendship is a bulwark and foundation against "normalcy."