Woah. Just Woah.

Deliver Me by Elle Nash is insanely good. I mean, talk about unhinged! At it’s core, this story is about one woman’s determination to have a baby but of course, there’s waaay more going on behind her obsession. It is weird fiction/horror that made me feel a bunch of Feels: sympathetic, paranoid, annoyed and extremely grimy. Phew! This one made me sweat 😮‍💨

This is the cruelest book I've read, and I couldn't stop reading it. The writing is intimate with a fraught psychological intensity to it. Every page is filled with tension. You know everything is leading up to something and something big but you're never quite prepared for it. Elle Nash's Deliver Me is hard to miss.

I couldn't get over how twisted and dark this book was but I'm surprised by how much I felt immersed and I couldn't tear myself away from the depravity.

Deliver Me is a bleak exploration of one woman's twisted desperation for love, motherhood, and vindidation. Daisy grows up feeling invisible and ugly and disconnected from her mother's evangelical fervor. Her friendship with Sloane is a turning point. When the women reunite year later, Daisy's obsession with Sloane and her toxic jealousy intensifies. The novel is brutal, shocking, yet well-written and candid. Trigger warnings : depictions of sexual situations and violence against animals and people are graphic and intense.

4 stars.

There were some *HARD* to read scenes in here!! It gets especially dark towards the end. Whew, I am successfully disturbed. This was a compelling and extremely uncomfortable look at mental illness and the desire to be a mother. Dark dark dark!

Themes of mental illness, religion, guilt, low self esteem, unhealthy relationships, desperation, and more. Very much looking forward to reading more from Elle Nash.

happy pub day to this one~

i really liked this at first and when i heard more negative reviews i thought people were being dramatic. turns out they weren't! but it's okay, i still walked away with a somewhat positive opinion of it.

i've read Elle Nash's other books and what i've always appreciated is the way she doesn't shy away from writing really gross/gritty characters/dynamics/environments. it sometimes comes across a little try-hard, but i'm still kind of a sucker for it. i will say, 'Deliver Me' felt a little more... mature than her other books, which i liked. and yeah, sure, it was a little gratuitous in it's grossness at times, but i admire that Nash is never afraid to 'go there', and i feel like this will stick with me for a while - for better or worse !

3.5 rounded up. thanks net galley for the arc!!

This book is totally deranged in the best possible sense.

It's not being marketed as horror but I think it could easily fit in there. It deals with body horror, death, class, religion and gender issues.

Not for everyone but Elle Nash is in total control of her whacked out story and leaves you no choice but to surrender to her wild ride.

Literally just finished reading this book, but felt compelled to write a review (warning) since it comes out tomorrow.

Our narrator Daisy, or Dee-Dee as she is referred to, is a dowdy 30-something who has low self esteem and is desperate to become a mother. Dee-Dee works at a chicken processing factory and lives with her weird older boyfriend who is only referred to as “Daddy”, their apartment is filled with his exotic bug collection. We get glimpses of Dee-Dee’s childhood, living with an inattentive and then sick father, and a religious zealot mother. In addition to her family life, her friendship with a girl named Sloane is extremely formative.

The implication is that Dee-Dee is the way she is and was driven to do the things she does because of some sort of failure of those around her. Religious trauma, the cruelty of parents, the sting of unrequited love are all real and can all cut deep. Dee-Dee has also suffered frequent miscarriages which has likely affected her the most.

It felt like the intention of the author was to illustrate how pitiful Dee-Dee is, how she has been neglected and let down by the people she loves. I think Nash could have accomplished this if this novel wasn’t so fucking gratuitous. Of course Dee-Dee works at a chicken factory because it’s one of the grossest jobs anyone can think of. Of course Daddy’s bug collection is some weird sex thing. The amount of absolutely unnecessary, graphic violence (against animals!) in this book is incomprehensible. I genuinely do not know why I finished it at all. I love reading books that make me uncomfortable and cause a visceral reaction but there is no nuance here, it is shoved right in your face in nauseating detail. It should also be noted that the perpetrator of all of this violence is Dee-Dee herself!

Anyway, any content warning you could possibly imagine applies here. This whole post is probably unintelligible and I sound like I’m someone who is always clutching their pearls but, Jesus Christ.

This just didn't come together for me. The surrounding characters felt too amorphous for most of the book, there was a lack of tension that I felt like had been promised, and I just felt like it dragged on. By the time we got to the the climax, I just didn't really care.

This could just be a case of right book/wrong person - I saw that this was meant to be a creepy, tense, horror book (even that it was meant to be quite gory) but for the first nearly 70% it leaned more into an exploration of growing up in a small town and in the church. The disturbing undertones didn't come through enough for me and I was left wanting more.

Dee-Dee is desperate to have a baby so her boyfriend and mother will lover her. So she will finally love herself. And the world will see her value. But after experiencing yet another miscarriage, the thin thread that tethers Dee-Dee to reality snaps under the weight of her desperation, leading to an incredibly disturbing climax.

Deliver Me is a literary horror that pulls no punches when it comes to difficult and taboo subjects like sexual depravity, infertility, abuse, misogyny, religion, and madness. My feelings towards Dee-Dee were conflicted throughout the book. On the one hand, I felt sorry for her. Clearly her desperation for a child, compulsive lying and binge eating are attempts at comforting herself that stem from traumatic and abusive experiences in childhood that affected her deeply. On the other, I was repulsed by her actions, her desperation, her relationships, and her deep rooted self hatred and how it manifested.

In fact, none of the characters in Deliver Me are all that likeable. Most of them are actually quite repulsive, and as the book goes on it’s easy to become desensitised to the events that unfold because everyone is awful in their own way.

The pacing of the book is quite odd, too. There are parts that are drawn out, maybe even a bit unnecessary. While the ending was quick. I don’t mind a slow burn necessarily but I found it hard to get into a rhythm while reading. Some chapters seemed inordinately long compared to others, and some chapters/scenarios felt a little superfluous.

I find it hard to say I would recommend Deliver Me to anyone. Not because I disliked it, but because it does deal with incredibly difficult themes that could be potentially triggering for a reader. That being said, I enjoy novels like this that push boundaries and aren’t afraid to be shocking. Would I say it’s gratuitous? In some ways, yes, but I think that’s rather the point. We needed to experience the repeated trauma with Dee-Dee and see the world through her eyes in order to understand fully why the book ends as it does. But that makes for a very hard read that is sure to leave a lasting impression on even the most well-read horror aficionados out there.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

I almost don’t know where to start here. Deliver Me is one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read all the way through. I would recommend anyone who wants to read it checking on trigger warnings. That being said this book is a gem of domestic horror. We follow Daisy, a woman in her thirties who grew up in a restrictive, very religious small town, as she tries desperately to become a mother. She works an emotionally and physically draining job, has a history of miscarriage, and a weird relationship with her boyfriend while she refers to as Daddy. Her past and her present collide when someone from her youth comes back to town. This further complicates her life until things start to spiral.

The writing is fantastic and I would recommend this book to anyone who can handle the darkest parts of it.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Oh man how do I even start with this one. It is not for the faint of heart. Which I happen to have. There were a lot of morbid, graphic and very dark themes that I was not prepared for.
It felt a bit like you're on a roller-coaster all throughout the book. Although I did often feel sick and disgusted by what was happening. I didn't have the stomach for this. There is a lot of animal cruelty in this and readers please go into it with caution. The writing and the characters were well written which is why it's so hard for me to review. Maybe it just not my cup of tea but it could be amazing for other stronger readers.

Deliver Me is narrated by Dee-Dee, but we don’t know her name until a few chapters in. At first she is a nameless worker, number four on the line at a chicken processing plant. She is a desperate and lonely woman. Trapped in poverty, an intense religious upbringing and an affectionless relationship. Dee Dee has suffered a series of miscarriages and is pregnant again, hoping that this latest will stick, dreaming of how a baby means the beginning of a new and better chapter in life. Structured in three trimesters with intermittent flashbacks, the true nature of Dee-Dee hopes and desires - and what she will do to achieve them — reveal themselves like an slow evisceration, a deep cut followed by a soggy burst of innards, viscera and blood.

If you hadn’t guessed by now, this book is gross, gut-churning, disgusting in all its descriptions of chicken slaughter, pregnancy, sex, eating and fat bodies.

DeeDee is positioned in parallel to the doomed slaughterhouse chickens — a young woman, a symbol of fertility raised to be the helpmeet of men in her life, never able to birth a child, a failure to her one purpose in life. She feeds herself compulsively, she is obsessed with being full, looking fat and growing large. After another miscarriage that was maybe just a late period her obsession turns to pregnancy. If she pretends to be pregnant hard enough, it will be true. And when DeeDee is reunited with her pregnant childhood friend, DeeDees focus on fulfilling her one true purpose goes into overdrive. All this obsession set to the steady, overwhelming beat of sweaty Pentecostal tent revivals and prosperity gospel preachers.

It’s not a big leap to guess where this story is going. And there are some moments where the author stumbles. We’re riding along with Deedee for the whole story, seeing and reacting through her eyes - she works a hard job, is convinced that her husband is a good man and provider and that once she gives him a baby he will marry her. But we can see he is indifferent at best, disgusted by her at worst. So when there are moments of deep philosophical thinking about God or clear flashes of self reflection, this other DeeDee is confusing and jarring. Her live in boyfriend, Daddy, also has moments of perplexing inconsistency. Sometimes a disinterested oaf, singularly obsessed with rare insects, other times a borderline internet-style mouth breather expounding about the decline of American immorality.

Deedee’s unraveling as well as the unveiling of her true nature happens in a rush, preceded by an escalating series of sudden, impulsive acts.

Deliver Me is spongy, wet, dripping literary horror. It calls to mind every chicken I’ve ever broken down, whether raw from the fridge or hot from the rotisserie bag, you’re going to have to feel the unpleasant film of grease on your fingers to get to the tasty meat inside.

thank you NetGalley and Unnamed Press for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review! ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊

3.25 ☆ for Deliver Me by Elle Nash.

TW: extremely descriptive depictions of animal abuse, child abuse and neglect, SA, domestic violence, bodily fluids, childhood trauma, and birth trauma/gore.

i have such a weird relationship with Elle Nash. i want to love her books so bad, but i somehow always end up in a weird limbo - stuck between wow! and wow. i also read Animals Eat Each Others by her and i realize i felt the same way: i generally feel entranced by her work, but by the end i feel like i need a shower and an emergency session with my therapist.

in Deliver Me, we follow the story of Dee Dee, a woman who is struggling to stay pregnant - and whose dream is to be a mother. throughout the book we witness her relationships (all extremely toxic) with the people around her, such as her felon of a boyfriend whom she calls Daddy, her borderline abusive and extremely devout mother, and her childhood best friend. so let me repeat: there is not one sane relationship in this book. not one crumb of normalcy.

i really liked the story. Nash is incredible at writing extremely raw characters and as stated earlier, i was entranced reading Deliver Me. i felt Dee Dee's pain, her anger, her turmoil and i was honestly rooting for her for the majority of the book.

my personal problem lies with some of the TWs mentioned earlier. if it's not clear enough, let me state it again: this book is not for the faint of heart. hell, it's not even for the strong of heart. i inhale all types of horror for fun and as someone who's been chronically online (and that since her formative years), very little can disturb me. but, this book managed to do it. i honestly felt nauseous at times and were i not invested in Dee Dee's story, i would've DNF'd it. maybe that's on me. maybe i should have checked the TWs beforehand and made the informed decision to skip this one. but honestly, the animal abuse was just too much and unnecessary to me - which means i cannot in good faith recommend this book to people.

again: Elle Nash is an amazing writer and Deliver Me was a good book. there was just too much detailed depravation for me to fully enjoy it. i am aware that the amount of details and descriptions has a point and is not gratuitous - but still. too much for me. i'm gonna need a good ol' rom com now to wash that taste off my mouth.

As soon as I started reading this I realized this might be a book that was written for shock value. I don’t say that often, but this is about a woman that lives with an abusive husband, works in a meat factory killing chickens AND is repeatedly trying to produce a viable pregnancy but instead deals with many that end prematurely. It was immediately one of the most heavy handed books I had encountered in a while. Nothing about it is subtle. In fact, the main character refers to the man that she is in a relationship with as “Daddy,” and things get much worse from there. This is technically “literary fiction,” but it reads almost like an extreme horror.

"Deliver Me" is, to its credit, one of the grossest books I’ve ever read, which is saying something. It's not even the chicken factory stuff, it's everything else. (I don't know quite how to describe it, but this novel has terrible hygiene.) Sometimes there are stories that make me feel physically pained by what’s happening and this was one of them. The way Dee-Dee abuses her body because of her denial of losing the most recent pregnancy and the delusion of doing everything she can to try to fake it, (even if it's harmful to her), is tough to get through. At the same time, I saw Dee-Dee described in another review as a sympathetic narrator, but that statement is downright laughable. She’s kind of an idiot, she does cruel, repulsive things, and she’s beyond redemption. She’s also selfish and manipulative, constantly lying in desperate attempts to garner sympathy. And then there's the animal murder. (Again, I'm not even referring to the chickens.) Is she a victim of her environment? In some ways. But I couldn’t stand her and I wasn’t rooting for her, ever. Why would anyone?

I mentioned that the symbolism is heavy handed, and here's an example: There’s a part where Dee-Dee goes to the doctor’s office. Outside is a billboard with a digital counter showing how many babies that hospital has delivered. She remarks that her workplace “kills at least that many chickens in a single day.” Wow, WE GET IT. Or what about the part where the abusive husband is waxing philosophical about humanity while literally watching a documentary about Ted Bundy? A lot of the book just felt like it was laying it on too syrupy thick. Get ready for musings like, “I never understood the idea that pregnancy ruins a woman’s body. A woman has never looked more sexual.” Though, as I mentioned earlier, it can take a lot to be too much for me and there was a scene that made me legit nauseous. It was downright gag worthy, and not in the Drag way. So, kudos.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that Elle Nash can write. This was a very messy ARC that needed quite a bit of editing, and I think that was maybe a bit unfair to her. Hopefully a lot of updates will happen before the book is published, since this IS an ARC. Typos, odd white spaces where there shouldn’t be any, words crammed together, etc. There’s a section or two where the paragraphs suddenly jump back and forth between the present and the past and it’s a bit confusing. Those parts may have been on purpose, but I don’t know for sure. I can’t help wondering if reading a fully polished version of this book could’ve changed a few of my opinions, but I did have other problems with it.

I do feel guilty about this: there were a couple of parts where Dee-Dee is gorging herself on junk food and I think you’re supposed to be appalled and part of me was, but also the description of all the food made me hungry. Lol, definitely not what the author intended, I’m sure.

Proceed with caution if you love cats, (I had one sleeping next to me while a particularly awful part happened and it was awkward to say the least), OR dogs. (Remember what I said about shock value?) And also maybe don’t read this if you’ve had bad experiences with pregnancy in any way. It’s not exactly a topic handled in a sensitive manner. I wouldn’t recommend it either if you don’t want to read long, gratuitous passages about how gross chicken factories are. There's even awkward stuff that happens to insects, so maybe take that into consideration. I did appreciate the messaging about the dangers of overbearing Religious households, but also my eyes kind of glazed over during the long passages of ranting sermons. (That may have been the point, though.)

Some of the characters’ actions didn’t make any sense. Mild spoilers here, but Dee-Dee flat out drives off with a friend’s baby and blatantly tries to steal it at one point and the friend is not only barely mad about it but also throws Dee-Dee her own baby shower later. Like, what??? And even though Dee-Dee is faking a pregnancy throughout the story, she keeps mysteriously finding sonogram photos in her purse. This is NEVER EXPLAINED.

I think this book had potential and I would probably read something else by this author because she's pretty fearless when it comes to writing absolutely anything she wants, no matter how crazy or offensive it is, but I personally wouldn't recommend this particular book to anyone. It wasn't a good experience. (But not in the way that putting yourself through a harrowing, upsetting book can be, if that makes sense.) I'm still going to give it three stars because I did like the ending and I think there were some shining moments buried throughout, but I definitely got to a point where I was hoping to be done with it.

TW: Animal cruelty/murder (graphic), miscarriage, domestic abuse, fat-shaming, misogyny, gay slurs, self-harm, Religious manipulation, children in danger

Elle Nash’s ‘Deliver me’ is dark, very dark, immensely powerful, and extremely disturbing, on so many levels! The writing is sophisticated, the plot unpredictable and the imagery often grotesque. Theme-wise, it touches on trauma, obsession, motherhood, and the impact of religion on women. The synopsis officially provided is just the tip of the iceberg: Nash has a very vivid imagination, exquisitely dark and unusual, the image of the slaughterhouse easily standing for the whole book: this is indeed a slaughterhouse of the mind, and one should be prepared to enter it the same way one goes into a real slaughterhouse – be prepared for deeply disturbing and unsettling moments and revelations that are hidden just beneath current daily life. Thankfully, Nash writes with compelling insight and a very strong sense of empathy; she knows exactly which details to highlight in order to leave a mark on both memory and mind. The ending seemed to me innocuous enough at first, no doubt horrific but not as demanding as the rest of the book; but then there came a short addition and the real ending revealed itself, sure to be haunting me for a long time.

Highly recommended!

This was amazing! Not for the faint of heart. While you can guess what Daisy will do the shock of it actually happening is amazing. Love the news story epilogue

Content warning for this book: lots of animal abuse and cruelty.

This wasn’t a bad read but the author was clearly going for a shock value that just wasn’t there. Nothing was shocking or scary. Mostly the book was predictable and sad. The relationship between Sloane and Daisy as well as their families made little sense. The names in this book also kind of felt like something from the UK and not US which gave the book a trying too hard kind of feel.

"Deliver Me" by Elle Nash is a haunting journey that grips you from the first page and doesn't let go. It's a tale that delves deep into the complexities of human emotion, religious abuse, and the darker corners of desire. If you're a fan of southern religious horror, this book is a must-read.

The Good:
Complex Characters: Dee-Dee, the protagonist, is a multi-faceted character that you can't help but be drawn to. Her vulnerabilities and complexities make her relatable, even when she's making morally ambiguous choices.

Vivid Writing: Nash's writing is evocative and atmospheric, painting a vivid picture of the southern religious landscape. The prose is both beautiful and disturbing, a combination that's hard to pull off.

Exploration of Themes: The book doesn't shy away from tackling heavy themes like religious abuse, trauma, and toxic relationships. It's a raw and unflinching look at the human condition, making it a thought-provoking read.

Room for Improvement:
Intensity of Content: While the book's graphic nature adds to its haunting quality, it may not be for everyone. A trigger warning would be beneficial for those sensitive to themes of violence and abuse.

Pacing: At times, the story's pacing felt a bit uneven, with some sections dragging on longer than necessary. However, this is a minor gripe in an otherwise compelling narrative.

In conclusion, "Deliver Me" is a captivating read that will leave you pondering long after you've turned the last page. It's not for the faint of heart, but if you're up for a challenging, emotionally charged story, this book delivers in spades.

Elle Nash definitely delivered with this one! There are so many pregnant plot lines included in books and movies but none that has quite been done this way. Our protagonist Dee Dee has devoted her life to having a child and does everything she can to manifest a baby after many miscarriages. I felt so heartbroken for her for not being able to achieve what she truly desired and for not having much support from her family - her mother is abusive and highly religious, always punishing her for her sins and looking down on her, while her partner cares more about his pet insects. There are a few trigger warnings to be aware of, with the big one being animal abuse. Dee Dee’s job involved her butchering chickens and this is described in detail. There are also more graphic scenes involving other animals (some involve insects used in sexual encounters which may make people uncomfortable).

I loved reading about Dee Dee and Sloane’s teenage relationship and observing how Dee Dee’s desires developed but I still don’t know how I feel about Sloane’s character as it’s difficult to tell what her intentions are.

In terms of writing, there are some grammatical and punctuation errors and there was a section where it was a bit confusing and the paragraphs didn’t flow well - it is a scene where Dee Dee talks about her father then goes on to talk about her partner who she refers to as “Daddy”. The next paragraph then starts with the sentence “but then he got sick..” - at this point it was difficult to know who Dee Dee was referring to until midway through the paragraph when she mentions her mother being upset so we can then assume it’s her father. If you weren’t concentrating while reading this, initially think she was still talking about Daddy.

The ending seemed generic at first for a horror pregnancy plot but then there was an added twist that made it much more disturbing. I highly recommended this novel to everyone who is interested in the gritty and grotesque.