This fantasy-horror follows Thomas who has to eat human flesh to survive. On the outside, he seems like a regular human, but when he feeds, he absorbs qualities of that person. He thinks he's the only one of his kind until a woman appears in his apartment complex one day. He soon finds himself beneath the human city and is introduced to a whole society filled with "Fleshers" like him. Only, his kind aren't the only ones out there and there's a war brewing.
TW/CW: child endangerment, child abandonment, body horror, cannibalism
I'll say right at the top that this is not my usual read. When I requested this book on NetGalley, it was only listed as a horror and thus I thought it would really lean into the quasi-cannibalism of these creatures. However, these creatures ended up having a much more complex societal structure than I was expecting and there was a good amount of political machinations going on as well. We even get some supernatural/magical elements which again upped the fantasy percentage for me. We start out the story in solid horror territory but it quickly turns into a more fantasy-heavy read. Since I don't like reading fantasy (I prefer to watch fantasy TV/movies), this story did lose me just a smidge in the middle. However, it won me back over in the last 25%. I do think this is a fantasy with substantial horror undertones, but I would list it as a fantasy first and foremost.
I really loved the characters in this ... except for Thomas. I didn't particularly dislike him, but I was pretty meh about him and his journey. He felt very much like a reader stand in since he didn't know anything about these other creatures or their dynamics. I can understand the plot reasons why he wouldn't know anything and would need to have everything explained to him, but it ended up feeling like he was pretty devoid of any defining characteristics. I would have preferred Thomas taking a more active role in the plot and maybe doing some investigation/research on his own. I found the other characters to be really interesting and well developed for side characters. Sure, we didn't know every detail of their backstories, but Chapman gave the reader their wants/desires/weaknesses which made them really fun to read about.
The horror elements were pretty solidly body horror with a dash of cannibalism. The opening 10% is pretty heavy on the blood and gore of Thomas's life and how he feeds and then transforms. However, I did then find that the middle section from 25%-75% was lighter on the horror and really leaned into the fantasy elements. But that last 75% we get some really fantastic descriptions and scenes that I absolutely loved. I didn't find any of the scenes particularly overly-descriptive (but I know that line will be different for everyone). I found Chapman's descriptions of these more visceral scenes to be really well planned out and always felt like they had a reason to be more graphic - usually for plot or character development.
The fantasy elements were a bit hit and miss for me - but again, fantasy is not my genre. I absolutely loved the world-building and lore that Chapman managed to fit into this 303 page read. I thought everything was really well laid out and we learned about this new world in layers so it never felt overwhelming. We have 3 pretty significant groups of conflicting beings (plus another one on the fringe and a couple humans thrown in the mix) so there's a lot of ground to cover. However, Chapman did a great job of rotating through these different sections of the story so the reader is consistently reminded of the dynamics at play. There is a plot line that gets a little too far-out for me and I found myself re-reading those sections a couple of times before I felt like I understood what was going on. Because of this, I did feel like the end reveal in regards to those moments didn't quite hit as hard as it might for other readers because I was a little confused and felt like I was out of the loop just a little bit.
Overall, this was a pretty fun read but it did lean a bit more toward fantasy than I personally like. That being said, I still enjoyed it and loved the world building, side characters, and horror elements.
Thanks NetGalley and Crossroad Press for the ARC
Publication date was May 28, 2022
Originally published May 6, 2019 by Omnium Gatherum
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