This is perfect summer horror! A dash of zombie, YA, friends-to-lovers, and LGBTQIA representation! This book is hilarious and will resonate with so many.

My first YA horror! I went into this knowing nothing except that it is a YA Sapphic horror novel. As someone who hadn't read any horror before I didn't really have any expectations. This book was fun, easy to follow and I appreciated its length. I can imagine that stories such as this one can quickly become too long and drag. The first page was a great hook.
3/5

I really enjoyed this novel, though I don't usually read YA, I loved the premise and the representation. I've ordered it into our store and I can't wait to display it for Pride in June.

Thank you netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the copy of This Delicious Death. When four best friends with a hunger for human flesh attend a music festival in the desert they discover a murderous plot to expose and vilify the girls and everyone like them. This summer is going to get gory.

I’m finding it tough to review this one as it was fine. It starts off a bit slow and while generally I love books that have mixed media elements to them, it didn’t feel like it fit well in this. There needed to be more or taken out completely.

However, I really enjoyed the pining and the queer best friends to lovers storyline. Plus, it was great to see how different a friend group can be in terms of personality and yet so supportive of each other. Overall, I would give this ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a decent read, just not the horror, music fest thrill ride I was hoping for.

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
The book ends up being a buddy horror novel with a romance thrown in at the end. The main characters are ghouls/zombies that are trying to live a normal life and go to a music festival. While there they encounter extreme ghouls and try to find out who is causing it.
At times it felt like there was a lot going on, with plot points added because of how they would look and not how they affect the plot.

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 prospectives. 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!

Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for an advance copy of this title! This fresh take on the zombie trope was enjoyable but not overly impressive. Definitely will promote to my YA & Horror crowds.

Publisher Description:
Three years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they'd pejoratively dubbed ghouls.

Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and SynFlesh and are ready to party.

But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can't figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.

This book was so good! I loved how addicting the writing style was and how fun the story was. It was one of those books that immediately hooks you and doesn’t let go until it ends.

I thought this was a pretty solid YA. I honestly liked the ridiculous plot, and I thought the characters were fun. It was a bit too gory for my tastes, but that's to be expected from a zombie book. I did think the romance was wholly unnecessary, but it was still cute. Overall a good time.

Lets just start off by saying that I loved this book so much that I will be buying a physical copy and then buying one for my best friend to read. I will be for sure doing a reread of this amazing book this Fall during Spooky Season.

This fun thriller is a great summer read. I love the new look at zombies and the fun twists. This is one that you can't put down,

This book was weird and creepy and made my skin crawl in the best way. not for those with weak stomachs but if you like gross factor, it's perfect.

Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine Are four hollow girls-only able to survive by eating flesh-or synthetic flesh. When one of them eats a band member during their graduation trip to a music festival, bad things start happening. They hav3 to find out how to get out of the festival alive.

I’m not a big horror person., but this was entertaining. It’s a sapphic , YA book that I think will be popular with the right crowd.

Holy wow! This was so fun! Flesh eating, girl powered, Coachella vibes… what a recipe!

I knew I’d love this seeing how much I enjoyed My Dearest Darkest.

It’s bloody, it’s queer, it’s full of friendship and even love! It’s a fast paced read you can easily enjoy without too much fright but slightly heavy on the gore. Think Santa Clarita but with teen girls.

Give it a go and watch out for this author! She’s quite the entertainer!

This is a book geared towards teens (I know it’s YA, but this was more YA than I cared for).

I have students that will love the ghoul take on zombies, they’ll love the music festival aspect, and they’ll definitely get into the pacing. For me, it was just too young…not deftly handled. It was fine. But I will definitely recommend it to my horror loving students.

I will start out by saying I wasn’t the right reader for this one. It wasn’t a bad book, it’s just not something personally enjoy. I’m sure someone else will love this one way more than I did!

I did enjoy the LGBTQ reps (trans girl and lesbian). I believe that since the main characters are teenagers, this book could help another teen who is struggling with their identity. I thought it was an odd book to put romance in, however.

The plot of this book didn’t interest me. It took place during the aftermath of a virus that broke out and affected half of the population, causing them to become ghouls (cannibals). A couple of ghoul friends head out of town for music festival. When they get there, things aren’t right. They start to notice some odd things. This plot didn’t captivate me. I usually enjoy YA, but this one felt too immature for me, due to the bizarre plot.

I was quickly able to spot out who was the cause of everything that was happening. The reasoning for why they were doing it was also a letdown. Overall, I didn’t enjoy this one, but I’m sure many others will.

Thanks Netgalley and Sourcebooks for the arc of this book, in exchange for my honest feedback!

This was quite a ride. Lots of great queer representation, and definitely a lot of fun. Very quick read for me.

WHAT A RIDE. This is Coachella meets.....a shit show, but in a good way. This was really unique, and I couldn't stop reading. I wish I had friends who enjoyed YA because I want to recommend this book to so many people. I loved the queer representation, and the friends to lovers storyline was such a neat juxtaposition with the ghoul characters.


I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

Have a hot ghoul summer...

Ever since the pandemic known as the Hollowing, Zoey and her friend's lives have changed. As a side effect of the pandemic, people were turned into flesh eating ghouls. Other than the side of cannibalism, they are normal teenage girls who just want to live a normal life. When they are afforded the opportunity to go to a music festival in the deserts of Southern California, pack up their trunk of lab grown organs for them to snack on and hit the road. What they don't know is that soon they will be in the middle of an attempt to turn the general public against ghouls for good.

I really enjoyed this book! I love a good found family trope and this book had it. I really enjoyed getting to peak into the backgrounds of all the girls and see where they were when they beceame ghouls and how they've overcome it. The plot twist was nice and I didn't see the bad guy being the bad guy.

I was lucky enough to meet Kayla at an author event and get some insight into her writing process which was so much fun! She was really sweet and I can't wait to read more of her books.

*Thank you to Kayla Cottingham, Negalley, and SOURCEBOOKS Fire for the ARC!

I love ya thrillers and mysteries and sometimes - it feels like there aren’t enough. This was nothing short of everything I wanted and was expecting. It was fun, we had some entertaining characters and I loved the main plot and following it through from start to finish. I had the best time, truly,