3.5 rounded up to 4

Lila is a Hollywood actress that would rather be working in a lab. Her child is kidnapped during the peak of her career, so EVERYTHING is under scrutiny. The police botch it, the press paint awful pictures of the family. And Lila disappears, to find herself.
She comes back to LA with a beauty brand, and a vengeance. She’s brutal, she’s a little crazy, and she’s still grieving.
This was a wild, unhinged ride. I did really enjoy the formatting, especially the blurbs from the “oral history” in part one. I feel like we lost the plot a little bit during part two, but the pacing kept it intriguing enough. Part three things really pick up, but also feel rushed. After an almost slow burn of a beginning I wanted more from the end. Though very satisfying and twisty! I would not consider this horror, as and avid horror reader, I feel like this should fall under the thriller category.

Great read all around.

ARC Review (no spoilers).

My favorite thing about this book was its formatting. The story is written in alternating points of view between our main character, Lila Devlin, and an “oral history” of interviews regarding her daughter’s kidnapping ten years prior. Within that, there’s also timeline jumps from the time of the kidnapping to the present, in which Lila starts a skincare company and enacts revenge on the people she believes responsible for her daughter’s disappearance. I believe that this timeline was handled extremely well— there’s clear indications of when you’re reading interviews vs reality. And I also think that this style of writing allowed for the plot twist at the end of the book to shine through. After years of reading books like this, I want to think that I’m pretty good at predictions; and this book let me believe I had figured out the “who-dunnit,” and then absolutely spun that on its head. This author knows this story like the back of their hand, and the reader is dragged along (happily, in my case) to a fairly satisfying ending.

I don’t think this book should be marketed as beauty horror—this is a thriller. This book is about motherhood and fame and the lengths people are willing to go to in order to make themselves feel like they’re doing the right thing. Lila Devlin is a deeply unlinkable character, but she’s relatable. I think lots of readers will see themselves in her. Luckily, the only decent person in this book is also a gem to read, and perfectly encapsulated the struggle to NOT be a selfish person in an age when it’s the easiest option.

This book reminded me a lot of Maeve Fly by CJ Leede. Both of them discuss Hollywood and LA with a critical lens that somehow still feels loving. Cruelty Free is a lot more critical of fame and the beauty industry, but it still packs a punch.

★★★★★ Brutal, brilliant, and totally addictive

I don’t even know where to start with Cruelty Free—this book completely wrecked me in the best way. Caroline Glenn has written something so sharp and strange and emotionally raw, I couldn’t put it down. It’s like if Gone Girl and American Psycho had a baby raised on influencer culture and grief.

Lila Devlin is a mess, and I loved her for it. She’s grieving, she’s angry, she’s trying to claw her way back into relevance—and she’s doing it with a skincare line that’s... let’s just say, not FDA-approved. The satire is biting, the writing is gorgeous, and the story goes to places I didn’t expect at all. It’s dark, it’s funny, and somehow, it’s also deeply sad.

I finished this book and just sat there, kind of stunned. It’s one of those stories that gets under your skin (pun intended) and stays there. If you like your fiction bold, weird, and emotionally intense, Cruelty Free is absolutely worth your time.

Hollywood, rage, and murder... lots of brutal murders...sit at the heart of this twisty riveting novel.

Lila was America's sweetheart and one of the most famous and successful actresses ever. She wanted to become a veterinarian but had that something special as a child which changed the course of her life forever. She was married with a child and one night someone kidnapped her baby, Josie.

What followed was crushing. She was treated as a suspect and the court of public opinion painted her as a horrible mother and person. We'll see this unfold and it's just as much a look at what was the crime of the century as it was a look into the toxic nature of fame and show business.

After no resolution came to it,her and her husband divorced and she's spent the past eleven years in southeast Asia away from everyone and basically disappeared. But now she's back in Los Angeles to start a beauty brand and it's going to be an uphill battle.

Along the way she'll find Sylvie and, together, well... things are going to get horrifically bloody. They're two psychopaths maintaining the glamour of business women in a respectable fashion.

We'll be there with them as bodies start piling up and as Lila's past comes back to haunt her. But wait! Oh, there are some fantastic twists to this tale. And they're so well written you'll never see them coming. They brutally come together like a dreadful puzzle at the end and it's so unexpected your jaw will drop.

If this book isn't on your radar, put it there. I highly recommend it.

Absolutely unhinged. For the first 25% I was sure that I misremembered the 'Horror' tag....and then it went completely off the rails in the best way. The entire time I was trying to figure out whether Sylvie or Lila was crazier. Love that. I didn't expect some of the twists and I couldn't stop reading once I was hooked.
Thank you William Morrow and NetGalley for the eARC!

Thank you to NetGalley & William Morrow for this ARC! I recently devoured Cruelty Free and found myself completely hooked by its razor-sharp mix of grief, vengeance, and celebrity satire. Lila Devlin’s return to Hollywood—masked as a skincare pioneer but fueled by a dark vendetta—felt chillingly modern and unapologetically brutal. The book had me alternating between admiration for its ambition and a twisted thrill at how satisfying its carnage felt on the page. For a debut, Glenn has carved out a powerful, unsettling space in horror—one that stays with you long after you close the book.

4.5

setting: California
Rep: sapphic protagonist

I predict this to be one of the buzziest books of 2026, especially amongst the weird girl book girlies. I was hooked from the start - I love a multimedia element - and the first part really satisfied the part of me that loves a literary story, and it slowly gets more unhinged after that. loved the unexpected queer rep with Lila's and Sylvie's relationship! I do with there had been a bit more about the beauty stuff and the collagen - it's actually a pretty tiny part of the book.

I went into Cruelty Free completely blind, and I’m so glad I did. From the very beginning, the story had me hooked, and I couldn’t put it down. The writing flows so well, and the pacing kept me engaged the entire time. The plot twist was an absolute shocker! didn’t see it coming at all, and it completely flipped the story on its head in the best way. Caroline Glenn did such a great job creating tension and then delivering a payoff that really sticks. I truly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to readers who love a sharp, surprising read.

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

Lila Devlin's life was what dreams are made of-- discovered by chance for a lead role in a movie, skyrocketing to fame and fortune with a picturesque home, her movie star hubby, and their daughter, Josie. However the public is no longer her biggest fans after a botched investigation into her daughter's kidnapping and murder stirs up controversy, skepticism, and lots of negative attention from the tabloids and true crime podcasts. Ten years and a pilgrimage to India help to facilitate healing and peace in Lila's life and she's ready to return to LA with a passion project in Josie's memory. Diving back into a world she's been out of for so long isn't as easy as she had thought and that carefully curated internal peace only gets her so far.

This book was nuts and I couldn't put it down. I loved the birds-eye-view of the interviews especially at the beginning to establish the past from the perspectives of others, it really helped to support the idea that it didn't matter what actually happened the night Josie went missing or during the investigation, the perception of the events held much more weight in the public's eye. The prose and dialogue were well written and natural but so bizarre. Every time I got an idea where I thought I knew where the book was headed, the rug was pulled out from under me. It was a cringey car crash of a downward spiral I couldn't look away from (complimentary). Would recommend!

Thank you to Net Galley, William Morrow Books, and the author for giving me the opportunity to review the book. All opinions are my own.

This books had a strong start. Like, a really strong start. The reports and the oral history mixed with the current storytelling gave me TJR vibes and I was loving it, but I think by the end of part 1, we lost the plot quite a bit. The first kill really strengthened the bond between Lila and Sylvie, but their romantic relationship and their thought processes in the rest of the book felt incredibly contradictory to their initial motives. By the time we got to the end, this book had turned into such a flaming car crash, you just couldn't help but sit back and watch to see how it was going to end in the most abysmally absurd manner. And it wasn't great.

3⭐️ for the incredible first act (and the inclusion of "cunt" and "mother")

I loved this. The screenplay in between each chapter in the first part hooked me in almost immediately, and as unhinged as she is, I found myself feeling for Lila. However, I did feel like the writing in the second part of the book was a little flat and didn't quite match up with the first and third parts. This was one of the twistiest books I have read in a long time, and it felt like every other chapter the entire trajectory shifted and it led to such a fun read.

This was so unhinged - but in the best possible way! You think this is going to be just another thriller, but then it goes in another direction completely.

I loved how the author mixed black comedy in with the more dark and shocking moments- I’ll never be able to listen to the Wicked soundtrack in the same way again!

This was a great debut and I can’t wait to read more from this author!

The formatting of Cruelty Free is interesting. The story is told with alternating points of view, switching between the interviews conducted after the kidnapping of the Devlin baby and the main character, Lila Devlin, both at the time of the kidnapping and 10 years later.

Lila Devlin is a Hollywood actress who never wanted fame and fortune until now. Thrust into the spotlight as a young woman, the limelight came crashing down after the kidnapping of her daughter was sensationalized by the media, and she was cast as the #1 lead in her daughter’s case.

Now ten years later, Lila returns to fulfill her childhood dream as a chemist and the CEO of a skincare brand. But to do so, she’s going to have to reconnect with the same people who ruined her life. But can she stay on track without turning to revenge? Doubtful.

This novel is very ambitious as it’s a lot of information that has to tie into the present and future choices of the MC. I was concerned during the first half of the novel that very little of the writing would pertain to the skincare brand, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well-rounded the book became as a whole.

I read half of this book in one day, so I would say it’s riveting. I loved how Lila would talk about the “grey thing/ grey creature” that would rear its blood thirsty head.

While the formatting may sound like true crime, I promise it’s gory and unhinged with an insatiable need for revenge.

This novel is very different from other skincare horror books I’ve read, and I applaud its ingenuity.

4 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you, Netgalley and William Morrow Books, for this ARC read!

What an excellent, fast-paced, gruesome book. Just when I thought something didn't quite work for my tastes, Glenn roped me back in. Not a word out of place. I love it when a storyteller comes out swinging and doesn't miss.

Also, I'm a Sylvie fan up and down. What a standout character.

What a ride. There are so many unexpected surprises in this story that I feel were executed especially well. At first the plot seemed sort of run of the mill and then it snowballed into something much more insane. In each section of the book, you dive deeper and deeper into this crazed reality. It was bizarre, funny, unique, heartbreaking and devious. It never fell stagnant. I cannot fathom this being a debut. Lila was the type of character you never truly can pinpoint, which works well for this story. The ending - WOW. That’s all I can say.

This was bloodier than I anticipated and I think it’s all the better for it. Cruelty Free was not afraid to go there, it does not tiptoe the line for your comfort. It is revenge in its most honest form.

I quite enjoyed this one!! It was creepy, weird, and I didn't expect the twists. The characters were relatable and I was hooked instantly!

This was a fantastic read, I was hooked from the start. The characters were shaded just perfectly, where as soon as you start to sympathize too hard with one’s bad behavior, you get ripped into another version of the same reality. This kind of writing makes the book feel urgent and propulsive. I enjoyed reading it and will enjoy recommending it as well. Thank you for the ARC.

(4.5 rounded up) Take the serial killer nature of Maeve Fly, cross it with the unhinged cosmetic industry horror of Natural Beauty and Youthjuice, and mix it with it’s own meditations on revenge and grief, and you have got one memorable debut. Unreliable narrators and unhinged women are some of my favorite tropes in novels I read and this one provides both. Lila, a former a-list actress turned public enemy, is attempting to rebuild her public persona by unveiling her plans for a skincare company. Ten years prior, Lila’s daughter, Josie, was kidnapped and never seen again, and this caused Lila’s life and career to be torn apart, once she was deemed an “unfit mother.” Soon after arriving back to Los Angeles, Lila begins a violent crusade to right the wrongs visited upon her a decade ago. This book so smoothly satirizes the wellness industry, the relentless cycle of passing fads, and the public’s obsession with building up a young woman only to gleefully tear her down. I loved this.

I’m going to go ahead and say it… I don’t think these beauty products were cruelty free.

Ostensibly a book about achieving beauty by any means, it’s really a book about longing for the past and allowing that yearning to fully consume you. Even in the most devastating of circumstances, failure to move on will slowly chip away at a stony heart until only vestiges remain.

That’s very much the case for our protagonist, Lila, who is somehow an extremely sympathetic figure even while also being a sociopathic serial killer. It takes skill to create a character with that duality.

This book is good. I didn’t know what I was walking into, but sometimes a book is best experienced with no preconceptions. I completely understood the motivations of the characters, the plot was interesting and moved effortlessly, and it was just twisted enough to keep my interest.

An impressive debut novel, which bodes well for more to come.

This book is WILD, and I say that in the best way possible. I absolutely loved this read and could not put it down. It's violent and gory and emotional and twisty. I really thought I had the twist figured out. I was wrong.