This is a creepy and downright strange story that explores themes of trauma of queer romance in the most twisted way. This book will hold you in a lingering feeling of dread throughout; you'll wonder where this story is going. You'll wonder if, perhaps, this story follows an unreliable narrator. This book will confuse you, and you won't know what to think of it as you read it, but it will hold you. It'll hold your attention in the most spine tingling way,

The story follows a young waitress holding heavy baggage and trauma. Living her life in a tiny little bedsit, you truly feel the isolation of this character and grow to love and sympathise with her.

The story takes a turn when she meets a mysterious woman named Helene. Helene is gorgeous (you can feel her aura through Stuckes' beautiful writing) and you can understand why our narrator is so enticed by her. But there's a dark side of Helene which we begin to uncover the very day they meet. There's something not quite right about her; there's a secrecy in the weight of her words. You'll wonder what the deal is with Helene as you learn more and more about here, with every piece of information about her disturbing you more and more, but you won't be able to stop reading. This book fully invests you in their relationship, and though it is twisted and somewhat macabre, you'll be desperate to discover more.

This is a short but disturbing story, and you'll feel a tad numb once it finishes. It'll all end too soon, and it'll take you a while to understand the story you just read. Hours after finishing, you'll put two pieces of the puzzle together; you'll remember something from the early half of the book which appears far more disturbing now in retrospect. This story will linger with you like the sorrow and trauma that lingers with the main character. And that's a good thing; it just proves the power of Stuckes' delicious writing.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Sceptre for providing an audiobook and eBook via NetGalley

Dead Animal by Phoebe Stukes
Out on the 11th of April 2024
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Throughout this book, you follow an unnamed female protagonist as she wakes up from the aftermath of a house party, battered and bruised, not knowing where she is or what happened to her.

Dead Animals tackles some very heaving subjects, sexual abuse, trauma, depression, and abuse, which are to name a few. It is not for the faint-hearted or those who are easily triggered. For me, however, it lacked depth in the storytelling. I felt as though I was reading a young adult book that didn't delve into the subject matter too heavily.

This is not a comfortable read it made me feel anxious, tense, like there was a dark cloud constantly hanging over my shoulder, and impending sense of doom. It's dark and disturbing, but at the same time, I felt compelled to read it.

Dead animals is only a short read, so I sailed through it. I don't know whether the lack of chapters was intentional, but it added something to her story, making it feel like there was no break in the trauma she was surviving through, it had completely consumed every part of her being.

I would recommend this book, even though it is not an easy read. It opens your eyes to the evils that exist in our society.

Thank you, NetGalley, and Hodder and Stoughton .

I will review on retail sites on day of release.

Reviews to socials will be done as soon as.

Dead Animals is an interesting exploration of the effects of trauma; the consequences of violence and the cyclical nature of abuse.

At times unhinged, but always with a foot firmly on the ground this tale is solidly delivered but slightly underbaked. There are a handful of turns that feed the vibe immaculately but harm the delivery of the meat of the story.

There’s a lot to unpack with this one and it does a great deal with its short page count but I did find myself wanting just a little bit more.

Good grief I inhaled this book. Perfectly tense, blending elements of horror into the narrative that make you question the narrator’s reality just as much as she is. It was a dark read, following the narrator in the weeks and months following a traumatic event (content warnings abound, please read them before picking up this book, it explores some very heavy themes), Dead Animals navigates finding safety again after having it ripped from beneath you.

The story begins in second person, and I didn’t notice when the story shifted into first person and became that of the narrator’s. What happened to her has happened to so many women that Dead Animals could be anybody’s story. I noticed a few of the Goodreads reviews criticise this shift from second to first person, blaming bad writing, but to me this seems purposeful - and cleverly so.

Going into this short novel blind, I was surprised to find it veer towards horror in the second half of the narrative. It worked tremendously well and really amped up the tension. Highly recommend.

With thanks to the author, publishers Hodder & Stoughton, and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

This was a dark and disturbing story, that merged a story of a sexual assault and its aftermath with something almost supernatural.

I had a certain level of empathy for the main character Elin given what had happened to her, but didn’t warm to her to the extent that I would have expected. Helene seemed a promising character that would be a positive influence on Elin, but after a while she seemed to change and became entirely unlikeable, and almost seemed destined to take the place of Elin’s abuser in her relationships.

That being said, the story did keep me engaged and wanting to find out what would happen, but the ending did feel a little rushed for me when it did come.

I really wanted to love this one, the premise was so promising for me, but it didn’t work for me.
It started off strong but I lost interest about 40% through. The unreliable narrator, the two dimensional characters…I just wasn’t sure what I was supposed to think.

I was absolutely gripped by this book. I couldn’t stop reading it. It was disturbing and dark but written in such a way that it was very accessible and you felt pulled to find out what would happen to the protagonist

I feel perturbed and unsettled after finishing this and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. I can see how this book is trying to comment on the wider issue of femicide and abuse against women, and I applaud the author for tackling such a difficult subject. While this book was short, it packed a punch, from the embedded violence to the unlikeable characters. It just fell short of what it was trying to accomplish, for me personally. The ending felt rushed and the characters were very one dimensional, but it was still a disturbing and dark read.

I wasn't sure how it would go but I ended up enjoying this book as it had me feeling a range of emotions and relatability.

I was really drawn to this-- that intriguing title, the striking cover, the premise --but I'm afraid it just didn't live up to my expectations.

The characters were entirely one-dimensional. The unnamed protagonist has no personality of her own, and Helene, who she becomes obsessed with, is equally forgettable. I do understand why this is-- because this is a book solely about sexual assault trauma which envelops her entire being --but I'm not sure it works. I personality find it very difficult to sink into books where the characters feel this flat.

Also, I was turned off from the beginning by the writing style. I'm not so obsessed with grammar that I can't tolerate the occasional comma splice, but they are used so frequently here it just comes off as poor writing. It made sense in sentences where it conveyed urgency or disorientation; other times it was needlessly jarring.

Similarly, expressions like "my side was cold to the touch like a side of salmon" and "staring at [the package] like it was my opponent in a game of chess" came across awkward and overwritten to me.

There's much in the way of words, but not all that much being said in this book. I found that the protagonist thought the same thing over and over again just in different ways. Which is not great when the whole book is only 144 pages.

Stuckes' premise, on the surface, is structurally sound. The cover adds to the intrigue presented by the description. We follow an unreliable narrator through her unusual life. At times, we aren't sure if we are being told everything.

However, the story as a whole fell flat for me. The characters were so two-dimensional that I found it difficult to care about them. Stuckes' writing reads as more Young Adult than the Adult book advertised. Additionally, there were far too many comma splices, making the book feel slightly amateurish. Many of the sentences could have been rewritten to become beautifully striking.

When the character was expressing her thoughts, they would often be in italics, but Stuckes has chosen to include "I thought to myself," making the sentence thoroughly redundant. This book needs to be gone over with an editor to shape up the technical aspects. Furthermore, we begin the book in second person, which comes across as a mistake for we then end up in first-person perspective for the rest of the novel.

On the other hand, there were some rare gems in sentences such as, "Customers are a screaming hydra of need." Though this isn't enough to save the book for me, and that is why I have rated it as low as I have. I understand what the author was trying to achieve, but it did not land. If this book had been a short story, it could have been spectacular.

Wow, this book really surprised me! It was weird, creepy and uncomfortable in the best way. It was a short and snappy but satisfying read. I will be highly recommending this to all my fellow weird girls.

This book feel unsettling, dark, creepy and at times, without hope.
It is very much worth your time.