The content warnings need content warnings. I went in blind and came out in a half-comatose state. It’s one of those books that leads you down a path where the horrors persist with increasing severity, and by the time you get to the end you think you’re ready… but you are not ready. I was not ready. And yet I consumed it in two days and feel very weird for loving this book. At least, I should feel weird about it. It would be weird not to feel weird. I guess that makes me weird.

@stevee.q Are there any jump scares in the books #fyp #horror #books #blowthisup #foryou #viral #xybca ♬ AHHHHHHH - DRYOLOHORSE

If you are also weird, then you might like this book. If you love body horror, if your moral compass is more like a drunken game of Twister on Halloween, if you want to have a deep and enduring distrust of worms, then this is the book for you.

We follow Crane, whom we meet while he is smashing (or being smashed) by his… it’s-complicated-and-deeply-toxic person, Levi. An ex-marine and total (expletive of your choice). They are interrupted by a newcomer to the hive, a young woman, who, like the rest of them, wanted to escape her life. During a moment of crisis, the hive reaches out telepathically to offer an escape and a new home with the hive, a wriggly mass of worms and flies that feeds off flesh.

Everything is normal and gross AF until Crane gets pregnant. He is nonverbal and autistic, which creates an interesting dynamic with other people. The hive that offered him gender affirmation, permission not to speak, and a safe space has betrayed him by letting Levi get him pregnant. Then everything rolls downhill from there.

The story is about Crane coming into his own agency as best he can in the most gawd awful circumstances.

I loved this book. Read the content warnings unless you’re as irreparably damaged as I am.

As a side note, I’m on team Stagger. Don’t know if that’s a thing, but Stagger’s my guy. #teamstagger

/rae/