Somehow a very different book than I expected, but I really loved it!

The story follows Graham, a funeral director, and switches between the present, where Graham is battling a serious illness, and his past.
It was beautifully written and was a really nice mix of spooky, somber, emotional and hopeful. I especially liked the ending

Obviously, as the main character is a funeral director, the book deals with death in all of its forms, so for people who aren't comfortable with that, I would not recommend it

While I was expecting more of a ghost story, this book ultimately ended up being about a much more literal haunting of grief. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, and even though death is waiting on every page you’ll be hard pressed to find a better example of the importance of staying alive

Perfect for fans of Andrew Joseph White, CG Drews, and NBCs Hannibal

It took me a while to collect my thoughts and write this review. I had to really sit with the story for a multitude of reasons.

The story is about Graham, an embalmer, who catches a contagious bacterial infection and suddenly his whole life crashes down on him. As it was advertised as a horror book, I expected there to be ghosts. However, the element of horror was brief but that doesn’t change the fact that he was haunted. Graham was haunted by grief.

I love Graham so much. I love Ava so much. I loved all the characters in the book actually and I had so much empathy and compassion for each one of them. The book deals with very dark themes, which is to be expected as Graham is an embalmer. He also deals with depression, shame, and grief revolving his transness.

I honestly don’t know where to begin praising this book. I loved Graham and Ava’s relationship so much. I like how forgiving and resilient it was. Towards the end of the book, when Graham hits a very low point, I couldn’t help but relate to his thought process. In my opinion, the themes of grief, death, memory, and mortality were all dealt with in a very good manner. Loved this book from start to finish. I cried. Have I said I love Graham? I love Graham. A new favourite book. </3

I definitely recommend this, but it deals with very dark and tense themes so I advise caution!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Lucent Dreaming for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This isn't an easy book, emotionally, but I couldn't stop reading or thinking about it. The characters are so well written, so three-dimensional. The setting is so clear, and unusual for the reader but natural for the POV character, and when the POV perspective starts to warp through illness it twists everything with it. The queerness was bedrock to the story, not an afterthought or scaffolding; there would be no story without it, but it isn't THE story. It's in everything. At its core, it's about healing - unevenly, with great difficulty, against your will maybe, both physically and emotionally. And love, of course. There's no loss without it.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

So the reason I wanted to read this is genuinely because I saw it on Netgalley and the description sounded like it'd be something right up my street. Friends, I was right. This story was so incredibly beautiful, jarring, and heartbreaking. This is described as both a "literary fiction" and a "horror" on Goodreads, but this for sure falls more into the literary fiction catergory, as the horror elements of this story felt more sad than horrifying. Which also means we've finally found a literary fiction I like! This book truly was filled with a heartbreak that I don't think I was ready for. The way that this character dealt with their queerness, them being trans and their grief was both beautiful and devestating at the same time. I genuinely found myself tearing up throughout this book and just wanting to jump into the story and give our main character a hug. I would absolutely recommend this if you want something that's going to tear your heart out and put it back together again, but please note there are some triggering topics throughout so please look up the trigger warnings before you read this book.

I’ll be deeply, deeply disappointed if this book doesn’t win any literary awards.

I hadn't expected to love this story as much as I did. It's a story about love, death, grief, human mortality, trust and transness. I found myself in love with all the characters including the supporting cast whom all felt uniquely distinct from one another.

Cecil Fenn's ability to make this such an interesting story really impressed me. While the events of the story are fairly unique, we spend majority of the book's runtime sick and trapped at home. Yet I hadn't felt tired or bored by this fact even once. I also greatly enjoyed the intimate access we got to the main character Graham despite the story being in the 3rd person.

Fenn's writing lulled me in and pulled me deep into melancholy without quite letting me drown in it. The topic of transness was also tackled beautifully, I don't think I've ever felt more seen by a portrayal of trans experience. Despite the fact that this is not my personal flavour of transness.

The way the story tackles the topic of queer loneliness and difficulty opening up to people also felt rather true to life and relatable. It does a great job at highlighting how queerness seeps into every aspect of a person’s life due to how discriminated and ostracized queer people are.

Thank you Lucent Dreaming and NetGalley for providing me with a ARC copy of this book. Despite me having had early access, I’ve judged the work fairly and honestly…so please do give it a shot for I do feel that passionately about this book.

I received an e-ARC and am giving my honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this opportunity!

If you're looking for the trans lovechild of Shirley Jackson and Donna Tartt, this book is for you.

I didn't know what I was getting myself into when starting this novel. I expected something kind of Frankenstein-y, maybe some Hannibal thrown in. And was instead face to face with my own mortality and the cost of sickness. Genuinely feeling like I just got bitch-slapped by the mental toll of chronic sickness.

Typically, I go into books that are sadder with a different headspace, with walls up. I didn't expect that with this, and so I experienced it in an entirely different way that I would have in any other scenario. And I'm glad for it. It allowed me to really feel for Graham and, at moments, feel as if I was there with him. A spectre of a spectator to Graham and Jackie's illnesses. There were moments during Graham's worst of his sickness where I could almost feel what he was going through. The cold ceramic of the toilet bowl, the tiles of the bathroom floor, the cotton feeling in your head. The description felt so vivid and real, it was hard to remember I was merely reading words on a page.

One of the stand-out aspects of this novel is the scientific details of embalming and the mortuary where Graham worked. It did a fantastic job of being detailed and painting a vivid picture without feeling disrespectful or the ever-popular 'gross to be gross.' I was completely enthralled. There was such clear care and love for the profession that really sold it all.

Another stand-out for me was the inclusion of a second chance at love. Losing someone you were in love with, but it not stopping you from finding someone new. What a beautiful and rare trope in queer media, ESPECIALLY when the first partner is a different gender from the second. Absolutely obsessed with this representation that seems so small but is so rare.

The way relationships (platonic and romantic) are explored is phenomenal. Between Ava and Jackie to Graham's coworkers. The realness behind it all, down to Jackie and Graham's argument when they were younger to Graham meeting Ava's parents when he was sick, it was both decidedly not sugarcoated but also not enveloped in pure tragedy and devastation. A perfect mix of both that left me staring at my ceiling for... a while when I finished at 3 am.

This is getting quite long so I'll allow this to be my last bullet point, so to speak, but I really loved the trans representation and how it was written. I love books with trans characters that are about them being trans. That will never change. However, sometimes it's nice for a book to have a trans character where that isn't the focal point. It's a part of him just like a peanut allergy would be or having blonde hair. It was refreshing but still real. There were still thoughts that I've felt often, worries I intimately understood. But it wasn't all he was.

There were a lot of hard topics in this novel that weren't shied away from, so I do implore future readers to look into content warnings before reading. But it is so incredibly worth it if you do. I spent an entire therapy session discussing different part of this book and how they made me rethink parts of my entire being. It was a sad read at times, tense at others, and yet it was hopeful, too. And when I finished it I felt lighter and like I finally understood that it's often more detrimental to relationships to not accept help than it is to. And wow was that a revelation.

What an absolutely gut-wrenching and beautiful story of everything grief and love have to offer.

I would recommend for fans of:
-The Haunting of Hill House (2019) as well as Shirley Jackson's books in general
-Donna Tartt/when Richard Papen almost died of hypothermia for what felt like 300 pages but was actually like 20 maybe
-Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo
-CG Drews
-the grief of The Summer Hikaru Died
-the vibes of Jon going crazy in the archives thinking all of his assistants were trying to kill him in The Magnus Archives
-Down Low (2019) with zachary quinto and lukas gage
-Adam Silvera but wished he wrote adult horror
Hannibal
-trans people (i heart trans rep)

The courage of living while devoting one’s life to assisting in memorial and maintaining the dignity of death. When the unconscious life sustaining breath becomes to painful whether by illness or heartbreak. To keep going in spite of the unknown future while honoring the past, letting it hold a space for love, acceptance, peace. This novel is haunting in its raw fragility that resonated to my core leaving my heart racing, eyes teary, and at the end a smile on my face. I devoured this book and cannot praise it enough for such a beautifully tragic, real, and humbling story of what it means to be human.

This is a quiet and devastating novel, meditative without being solipsistic or bogged down in philosophy. Graham is precisely drawn, his grief and struggles with both death and illness are acutely communicated, and impressive feat considering the extent to which he responds with avoidance of both the feelings and the care he is offered as a result of hardship. While this book spans more than a decade in time, concentrating primarily on the beginning and end of that decade, it is not a high action novel, and it does not need to be. There are multiple illnesses, a loss and recovery and the daily work of a funeral home and The attendance to grief that requires. there is the experience of queerness, and experience that shapes these characters, but is not centered in the story and there are comforts if not answers and it is all written in clear, quiet and beautiful language.

The Restorative Artist is a story of grief in all its forms - loss, death, guilt, change, relationships, friendships, the future. It is written in such a brilliantly moving way that you feel deeply for each character even if they do not have a major role. Fenn's debut novel is subtle in its queerness and clearly has some biographical references which make it all the more heartbreaking and heartbreakingly beautiful.