This was a very dark book that I found myself unable to finish. As someone with an invisible illness very similar to Fibromyalgia, this was too triggering a read for me. But I'm sure other people will like this book and appreciate it in a way I am unable to. I am unable to give it a star rating.

A dark thriller set in modern London, following Leander, a young man (20ish I’d say) who’s been living for years with a chronic illness that causes him constant pain, and isn’t properly recognised nor treatable. Tired of useless diagnostics and trips to the hospital, Leander has decided to give the finger to all this, and embarked on a life of drugs, sex, and mixing with more or less unsavoury characters who fuel his descent, and whose addiction he fuels in turn through constant games of sadistic/masochistic manipulation.

To be honest, I’m not sure where exactly this story sits on my spectrum. The first chapters felt rather disjointed and meandering (which in itself matched the narrator’s mental state, I’d say, since he’s pretty much doped on something or other almost all the time), and while there is a plot, it took some time to emerge and be recognisable as such. I guess it was somewhat lessened by the shock factor, and the many scenes of violence and rape (one may argue that Leander was somehow consenting, since at least some of them were the result of some of his manipulations, but that’s a very slippery slope here, so I prefer to call that rape). It felt like the characters as well as the underlying message had more potential than that, and perhaps weren’t given all the limelight and development they would’ve deserved, instead of being shadowed by the grit element.

On the other hand, said message—chronic illness, the way many of those ailments are still relatively unknown and not treated, not to mention considered with disdain by many people—was still a powerful one, carried by a poetic writing full of strange but curiously endearing metaphors. While I do not suffer from such an illness myself, I know a few people who do, and who keep struggling day after day not only to live with their symptoms, but also to make other people understand that, no, they’re not “faking it”, that it’s not merely a matter of “think positive, go out more and make more efforts”, and that because you can’t necessarily see their symptoms easily doesn’t mean they’re not there and causing constant pain.

As a result, in spite of Leander’s twisted games and of the way he treats most people, it was surprisingly easy to root for him nonetheless, because deep inside, he’s more broken than breaking, and all in all, most of his actions are the only way he’s found to bear his pain. In the end, it’s hard to know what is true and what is lies about him, whether’s he’s completely bound for a path of self-destruction or can still find a better life—his schemes sure don’t make the way easy for him.

I’m not giving the story more than 3 stars because I found it hard to really care about the characters: we get to be in Leander’s mind, but considering how much he also lies to himself, it’s difficult to really get to know him; and the rest of the cast is mostly seen as either prey or predator, as people he can use and harm or who can use and harm him. The few decent people he meets don’t necessarily last long in the movie of his life, and the ones who do have the potential of helping him destroy himself rather than bring him some healing.

Conclusion: An interesting theme, and if you want grit and rotten human beings, you’ll get that for sure, but I feel that the latter may have been just a little too much, and didn’t give the characters enough room to breathe.

This was a strange book. Whilst well written with a unique author voice, it was far too graphic and very difficult to read at times. There's lots of death, sex and abuse. Judge for yourself whether that's a book you're comfortable with.

Leander is like a ticking time bomb with a propensity for violence and a tendency to bury any emotional response, which may appear to the mere human eye to be a humane reaction or at least one deemed suitable by society. He hides behind the games. Fighting pain with more pain, regardless of whether it is inflicted upon others or done unto him.

To be completely frank I think Lyon has carved out a large piece of his soul and woven it straight into this story.

Leander may describe himself as a psychopath, but perhaps his coping mechanisms are just a little more extreme than those of other people. His physical pain has become the demon wailing inside him and battling to take over. To combat the demon he must distract it by any means necessary. Which means hurting those who purport to love him, destroy and play mind games with the shallow ones merely craving his physical appearance.

It’s a riveting combination of literary fiction meets noir, which brutally kicks the characters aside on occasion to allow for some brash contemporary reality. It is marmite toast served with a chilled glass of champagne. It is the kind of read that ends up on the tips of wagging tongues and achieving cult status.

Jonathan Lyon devours himself, his desires, his fears and his pain whole in this ode to the black hole and Shakespearean play of millennialism. Carnivore is perfused with the wealth of an intellectual mind in constant battle with itself, refusing to be taken prisoner by the borders and boundaries of society or literature.

Are you a carnivore, am I? Are we all destined to be devoured by the hidden insanity and self-destructive tendencies of others or ourselves, whilst sailing along in the interim in our self-inflicted state of stasis, coping and yet barely living.

Yes, it is that kind of read.

"Evil is necessary to live vividly."

Carnivore has garnered very mixed reviews, ranging from five star rambles about how amazing and daring it is, to no star rants about how it's disgusting and rambling. I thought it would be a book that I would either love or hate, but actually I'm resolutely in the middle. It is shocking and explores the psyche of a seriously damaged young man well, but after a while all the shocks and stream of consciousness narrative actually got a bit boring.

I've got to give credit to Lyon for writing in such a raw manner about chronic pain, something which he suffers from himself, which is not taken very seriously, partly because it is not well understood. It sounds, frankly, horrendous, and it's no wonder Leander is out of his mind on heroin most of the time. He also suffers from synaesthesia, he sees senses as colours which, ahem, colours the narrative in a unique way and opens up a window into a way of looking at life that not many people are aware of.

If you ignore, or just accept, some of the more disturbing sentences, there is actually some excellent and emotive writing in Carnivore, especially in the way describes his illness. There is also humour dispersed throughout the book, most of it dark, but there were times when I found myself chuckling.

"My body is like a temple in that it's ruined and has an entrance fee."

However, I found myself cringing more often than laughing; there are some seriously messed up scenes in this book, especially sexual scenes, and it's not for the squeamish. To be honest, it felt like most of it was put in there for shock and it actually took away from the story, even if it is a rambling one. Lyon goes overboard on the shocks and ultimately ends up doing the opposite and it becomes a bit boring. Reading it became exhausting.

Also, the actual story and the relationships are very fragmented and hard to follow. This is obviously a huge part of the plot, but I felt I needed a connected thread at some point just to pull me through.

My Rating: 3 Stars
I received a copy of Carnivore, via NetGalley, in return for an honest review. My thanks to the author and publisher.

This story has only one job and that is to shock.
In my view this is just trash with anything that can shock a person thrown into a story.
Not for me.

DNF - I did not finish the novel so I cannot fully comment on all of its content. Thank you for accepting my request to review this book however.

When I read the synopses of it I was rather intrigued. I didn’t expect to read about a rape scene at the beginning of the novel however.

I understand that this book is intended to be “controversial” but this wasn’t stated as a trigger warning or alluded to in the synopses. Given this, I wasn’t able to continue reading the book as it was too uncomfortable for me to read.

Whereas others may enjoy reading this book, it simply wasn’t a book for me.

I love books featuring an anti-hero but this one was too raw for my liking, the constants cycle of drug taking, sex, and violence was too much. And I couldn’t understand Leander’s actions/choices at all and this made it all seem implausible. I failed to finish this book.

I think this book is very much about shocking the reader and given the content, I found the vivid imagery made the already disturbing content even more disturbing.

I’m sure there’s a fan base for this book but it was too brutal for me.

Leander is nominated son of a heroin addict mother, who believes that 'it will all work out' with her new man. That they are finally going places. But Leander's relationship with his mother is more complex - she arranges for one of his sex clients to beat him, he crashes her into the car dashboard. And so begins the most erratic, planned, depraved bender.
Leander is narcissistic and over-intellectualised. Regardless of the author's personal experience, it's painful to read of anti-hero (read: villain?) meeting the stereotype of using a chronic illness as justification for Machiavellian machinations, even if he ultimately appears as just a victim of his illness.

Disturbingly compelling story looking at the darker side of human nature.

This is not what I expected at all. Someone who has chronic illness uses extreme physical pain, sex, drugs and violence to overcome the effects of his illness.

Leander lost his parents at a young age and two years ago, he met Dawn who became his "mother". Their relationship is certainly unconventional.

This story is written to shock! The drug abuse, rape and human trafficking are taken to an unnecessary and incredible level. The manipulations and violence are sickening. It emphasises the most appalling aspects of human nature. It's one of the most horrendous story I have ever read. It might appeal to some readers, but I can't say that I found anything positive about it.

I was kindly issued with an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley and the views expressed are my personal opinion.

Wow.

I’m speechless. Honestly I am.

I loved this book even though it wasn’t easy to read.

If the synopsis of this book intrigued you I want to go ahead and give you a few CW’s because I do kinda wish it had some to have made this reading experience a bit easier.

– drug abuse
– death / murder
– violent rape
– prostitution / forced prostitution (?)
– abuse: mental and physical
– ummm probably a lot more?

Carnivore is so poetically written but at the same time very intense and brutal.

Like I said definitely not for everyone.

However it did end up being for me.

Its an understatement to say Leander is a bit of a mess. He definitely thinks he has total control of his life by manipulating and emotionally blackmailing everyone in it but its clear that isn’t so.

Its been so long since Leander wasn’t portraying a version of himself that best suited the situation that realistically its not until the very end we are provided with the chance to know him.

He is trouble and in need of help.

Living in a shelter with his “adoptive” mother by day, prostituting himself by night, and enjoying his (more than fair) share of drugs and violence in between is how he spends his days.

Until his mother gets involved with a huge crime lord and Leander finds himself in the middle of a plot he hadn’t fully realised was possible.

He finds himself faced with a planned mugging that almost kills him, a lovers spat, trying to gain control in his friendship group, the chance to become a star, and, being tortured and raped. All whilst making sure he knows where he’ll find his next hit.

I think what impressed me most about this book is that it doesn’t try and gloss over anything. It really gets into the nitty gritty and I definitely found it a bit triggering at times.

But on top of this the portrayal of chronic pain is outstanding. Leander has a lot of (internal and external) monologues filled with poetry and metaphors, a lot of which are on the topic of his hidden illness and they were really impressive.

Leander uses the violence and drug abuse as a way to cope with his illness which is why its such an integral part to his story(definitely not something I’d recommend here guys).

The book is split into parts which really helped me as I’d take a breather from it after each one as it wasn’t a book I could consume quickly. I think the book is aware of this as the last part had a much quicker pace as it raced towards its climax. Which suited this book perfectly.

The ending made me really happy too. Leander definitely has to face his consequences but in the final chapters it seems he’s ready to face reality and learn from all the devastation he’s caused and had happen to him. Though we don’t know for sure Leander changes his ways, we at least get a nice tidy ending with the possibility of him having a acceptable lifestyle with a support system that might not encourage all the danger and violence he’d grown accustomed too.

I do think that perhaps there could’ve been more answers to what happened after with a certain journalist but its only upon writing this review I realised this.

What an incredible debut that was... I wasn't expecting anything that this book gave me, but I was left in awe at the themes this book explored, the raw and gritty vulnerability to it and just how exposed the writing was. It's left me feeling even more open to different genres and exploring my reading tastes.

I would say that if you don't sit well with disgusting, grotesque scenes then this probably isn't for you. I was surprised at how well I handled this, and I would like to say it's because the majority of the scenes were in our main character's head and so weren't really happening, which made me disassociate myself from it and read it for the unique and oddly beautiful way it was written, but in saying that, the horrible scenes that were really happening only made me cringe in the slightest. Perhaps that says something about my character. It's a twisted thing to say I enjoyed this story for it's gruesome, morbid descriptions, but it was done in a... Interesting, well read way.

It's funny really because I felt up until the last 20℅ that I still didn't know Leander... Most, if not all, he's told us is a lie, a fantasy... Who is he and what was his life before 2 years ago when he met Dawn in the shelter? We remove his layers nearer the end and scratch the surface to his true form, seeing his inner vulnerability, which was equally unnerving and inspiring.

At times the writing felt sort of pretentious and I was lost in the conversation, or maybe that was the just the voice of Leander, the character I never truly got, but generally the writing was beautifully worded and rather lyrical. There was a whole metaphor about being an Arctic fox and it felt so random in it's connection to Leander's feelings but clearly fitting for him. It was really beautiful. The thing that confused me though was how everyone seemed to be on equal or just below equal level of Leander's wavelength. I found it improbable that everyone would speak so lyrically as he does. At times the writing made me feel like I was over thinking connections and was really trippy, which made me, myself, feel manipulated by Leander. It was a very strange experience.

There were a lot of unfamiliar words in this book that I feel added to that pretentious narration, so that both repelled and fascinated me. It didn't alter my reading experience too much as I didn't always feel the need to look up meanings, as quite a few times the word explained itself in the greater text. There were two words I just had to look up though, and they were what Leander suffered from; myalgia and synaethesia. The latter really gave me an understanding to the colourful way he articulates himself and made me less confused, even though I still struggled at times to differentiate what Leander was really seeing/smelling etc and what was fantasy.

This book brought to my attention more books/poems, etc that appeal to me, such as A sorrow beyond dreams by Peter Handke. Our main character seems to know a lot about everything, particularly literature and being quite a twisted minded soul, I'd like to see what the tastes he mentions are like.

This book kept getting crazier and crazier and the plot thickened into more twisted and frantic outcomes which equally made me sickened and compelled, to result in a sort of redemption love story- but non of the fluffy stuff, so don't let that put you off. I've got to say this was a really interesting read and as weird and twisted as it was, I'm not ashamed to say it will most certainly stay with me for a long time.

Hmmmmm this was such a weird one and a hard one to review. I didn’t enjoy it tbh and found it hard going (yet my friend loved it). I hated the main character and just found even the gory-ness all quite boring and try hard? He basically just goes through life selling himself to buy heroin for his mystery illness, it’s brutal and sexually explicit but all the same very samey and boring 😓

Sorry even struggled to finish it.

I would recommend that people pick this book up, regardless of outside reviews, and find out for themselves.

It is such a split down the middle type of novel that has caused controversy both in plot and reviews. Some people absolutely loved the brutality and unique character portrayal and others felt it didn't quite hit the mark. Personally I fall closer to the later category as I couldn't quite appreciate it for all it's worth, yet can honestly say it might well be a book worth re reading at some point.

I found the dialogue honest and original and that it read like a movie script but I couldn't get comfortable with it as a piece of readable fiction. Perhaps I'll revisit it at some point and give it another try.

This is a difficult book to review, it feels like the author is trying too hard to shock .

The characters are well drawn but the sense that they are transgressive overwhelms the book , it feels like its a list of what can i make the characters do to shock and the shocks wear off and start to make the reader try to guess what is the next thing we are going to discover.

The writing is impressive and i think the author will write something better maybe he just needed to get this out of his system . It does remind me a little of early Martin Amis (Dead Babies)

I really enjoyed this book.

Leander is one messed up dude; seducing people on a whim, selling himself to buy heroin to help with his chronic pain and generally being intense and disturbing. He’s one of the most dysfunctional main characters I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a while.

Leander is beautiful and mad and intriguing as hell.

I loved the way the author tells this unique story, blending bits of American Psycho, A Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting. What’s not to enjoy? There is humour at the core of the novel, a welcome release from the darkness.

This is not an easy book to read or digest and I had to turn away my eyes at times when it got a little too much but it is nevertheless, a damn good read worthy of your time.

I really liked the premise of this and requested it from NetGalley.

I was a little disappointed, I didn't really get stuck into the storyline as I had hoped. I found the dialogue stilted in places, and it didn't really hit the spot for me. The descriptions about the chronic illness were the most engaging, and the author did the explanation well, flipping the pain on its head like this for the main character was the part that got me interested in the first place, but sadly I didn't really enjoy it as I expected to.

This is really not my usual fare at all but every so often I like to try something outside my wheel house and I thoroughly enjoyed Carnivore. It's not for the timid reader, one who dislikes scenes of violence or degradation or who must like the MC and have a happy ending. In fact all the characters in this book are fairly despicable. However if you have a morbid fascination for the datk underbelly of society and want to enjoy the vicarious thrill of walking those dark and dirty streets then this is for you. I personally found I had to know what happened to the characters - liking them wasn't a necessity. In that respect it's rather like Trainspotting or A Clockwork Orange. If you fancy being on the side of the dregs and the anti heroes for a bit, give this a go. It's taut, pacey and oddly enthralling.

Leander enjoys pain and violence and has seen more of life in his twenty odd years than many people see in their entire lifetime. He suffers from chronic Myalgia which colours his lifestyle. He is wise and manipulative beyond his years and enjoys quoting copiously from his favourite poets. He is probably the most amoral character I have had the pleasure of coming across in many years.

Leander crosses the path of a notorious, violent criminal in his home city of London and their lives from that point on becoming intertwined to the detriment of all who become involved with the pair. To try to describe the plot in any more detail is frankly impossible as it is more of a holistic experience than anything which can be explained.

Drugs, murder, anal rape and sex – it’s all here but it’s never salacious or pornographic although certain scenes will no doubt make you wince. It’s just what it is – part of Leander’s life. Think of the unemotional and detached violence in “Pulp Fiction” and you’ll have a general idea. The text is full of metaphors and what appear to be general ramblings which suggest it’s disconnected and doesn’t flow. It’s not and it does but doesn't expect for one moment that you will be able to understand every sentence. Taken alone and in isolation no paragraph makes sense. The only way to understand anything is to just read and let the sensations wash over you. The last book which gave me anything like this experience was Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum which remains one of my favourites.

It’s an amazing if jarring read. Heartily recommended.

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review