This was a wild ride and a great reading experience. I loved the concept and how different it is to other things I've read.
It had lots of different plot points and elements that the author mixed together to create an interesting, fast paced story. It'd consistently moving and changing and as a reader you can't imagine where it will head next.

The book has such a specific and distinct voice that really works well with the horror, comedic at times, very dark, emotional elements. I thought the multiple Pov style also fitted with the narrative well.

This will be a book that I'll recommend to other readers, especially horror lovers who want a modern take on Eldritch horrors.

DNF strikes again! This story is very unhinged and focused on body horror, but it lacks a ton of context and explanation. This seems to be a theme with the ARCs I’ve read this year… I felt that it jumped right into the plot with no explanation, but it continues with no explanation and feels like it jumps around a lot.

While I really liked the body horror, the cosmic horror, and the Eldritch monsters, I'm not sure if this really worked out as a full-length novel. There almost felt like there were too many themes trying to be combined, where a focus on one in a smaller novella would have been more successful.

The divine flesh lives inside Jennifer and now and then she puts Jennifer to sleep and takes over her body.

She eats, sleep, loves, shags, kills and regenerates Jennifer’s body making it impossible for her to get rid of the divine flesh.

… and trust me! She does try!

And whilst living with this god like being, Jennifer tries to live her life of doing deliveries and drinking to forget, since her marriage failed and now her husband is only interested in being with the divine flesh.

But what would happen if the divine flesh would agree to release Jennifer and face the world by itself?

If you’re someone that likes to have the full picture of what’s going on this book is for you.

The amount of details in each scene makes you feel like you’re watching a movie.

Nothing has been left behind and every character has a story, including larvae.

Add to this a good amount of gore and romance. It’s almost like a match made in heaven.

This Divine Flesh is going to be released in March and if you’re into cosmic horror you better make sure this book is on your TBR.

I was really curious about this from the blurb, I thought it would be weird and it definitely was, but in a really great way. It's bizarre and different, but oddly emotional in places and funny in others. It's definitely one to go blind going into, it will be such a pleasant surprise. Excited to read more from this author

I was excited about this story and the premise sounded great. However, I chose to DNF this book because I didn't enjoy the writing style. It was unnecessarily complicated and a lot of words were used to say something short. I truly believe the story is/would be good, but the writing style wasn't for me. That being said, I'm sure plenty of others will have no issue with the writing and enjoy this much more.

4.25🌟

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the arc of this.

This book was weird, like the kind of weird that I eat up all day. Like what the hell did I just read weird. And then when I thought it couldn’t get more weird, it did. I can’t wait to pick up the physical copy when it’s released!

DNF @ 23% I really tried to push through and get a decent amount read but I just couldn’t get into this. The premise of this book sounded so unique and something up my alley, but unfortunately it was a miss. At a certain point we started to follow other pov’s/different events taking place, that made this feel too busy to keep up. I think part of that complaint is the pacing.

What I did love was this incredibly unique plot & the “The Divine Flesh” character (truly felt really well developed) which was my fav.

*Thank you NetGalley for providing this ARC!*

I’ve never read anything like this so this book was a new venture for me.
The body horror throughout this book is quite a lot, definitely one to acknowledge the trigger warnings on.

Overall, the concept was really interesting and I found the characters, though self-destructive and weird, interesting to follow.

This book sucked me in FAST. I was incredibly delighted by the Jekyll-and-Hyde dynamic of our main characters, Jennifer and DF, and it was fun to be propelled directly into their casually insane world and story.

Extremely important to note: the content warnings are not to be taken lightly. I found this particularly true of the SA warning. SA is not just mentioned in passing, it is an active part of the horror aspect of the book and is at some points described in graphic detail. Absolutely check all of the other content warnings as well - this book is a lot heavier than the goodread blurb might suggest.

The book is divided into four parts and the first part absolutely won me over. The second, however, began to lag so much that I honestly think it could just about have been cut entirely. All the body horror that was bizarre and fun and shocking in Part One...started feeling repetitive. I caught myself feeling bored and wanting to skim over what felt like pages and pages of the same fleshy descriptions. Parts three and four managed to get back on track with the plot and wrapped things up pretty well for a book with such an ultimately large scope.

I had a couple minor stylistic critiques with the writing (character voices intentionally vs unintentionally blending together, so much stammering, and I can only read “my hick accent started to creep in” so many times before I want to shake someone).

Finally - I am very wary about the frequent presence of gratuitous SA in horror and I haven’t 100% decided how I feel about Huff’s usage of it in this novel. The first couple of mentions are of course hard to read but had a clear purpose in both the plot and overall commentary of the book. The more graphic scenes later in the book…these felt more like they were for the horror and shock factors. I think I understand why Huff chose to include it but I don’t fully agree with that choice.

All in all, while I think this book would take its best form after being cut down to novella length, it made me feel and think a lot while also letting me enjoy a darkly absurd romp with characters I had fun rooting for.

Many thanks to Net-Galley and to the author for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Holy body horror! I was unprepared for how much I would love this book.

Thank you to Drew Huff | Dark Matter INK and NetGalley for providing the opportunity to read and review e-ARC.

I'm really in two minds about this (ha ha).

There are a lot of things to love here. I was invested in the characters, particularly Jennifer. Huff handles Jennifer quite well, making her understandable and even sympathetic, despite her self-destructive choices and genuinely reprehensible actions. It's very easy for those type of characters to lose the reader, but I was with Jennifer the whole way. Also worthy of note are Susan (they hate to see a girlboss winning), Daryl (perhaps the guy who fucked around and found out the hardest in this book) and the Divine Flesh herself (they hate to see a girlboss winning).

The prose is really quite twisty and demands a lot of concentration from the reader, and it pays off. You feel just as exhausted and confused reading it as Jennifer does living it. The body horror is some of the most frightening shit I've read in years and not for the faint of heart. The presentation is reminiscent of Brainwyrms, though there is less parasitic body horror here than in that (and that was ok! what parasitic body horror is here is SO MUCH). I loved the gnostic theming throughout the book; Huff put that in as a little treat for me, noted Gnosticism enthusiast.

But, I think the pacing is just the tiniest bit off. It's ever so slightly too slow for most of the book, which really bogs the whole thing down, particularly when combined with the complexity of the prose. A little more of a sense of the characters' goals or lack thereof could have helped as well. I understood the larger goal of "take down Divine Flesh", but I was a little less sure of what Jennifer and Daryl's minute-to-minute goals were. I'm also not 100% content with the ending. I think it works fine, but I'm not sure how well it tracks with the book's exploration of redemption. There's definitely room for debate about that though! I'd be interested to read other reviews.

If you're in the mood for a rather grim exploration of the horrors of humanity and love, check this out!

I received this book from NetGalley and Dark Matter Ink.

A fully unhinged reading experience. This is body horror and cosmic horror done right, with all the mind-destroying, existential threats to reality you could ever ask for in the Divine Flesh and some truly nasty work when it comes to the blood and bones of anyone within a three mile radius of this story. I can see how some might be turned away by the sheer amount of stuff that this book throws at you (it just keeps ramping up past the point of belief), or how the writing style could throw off others, but this is the kind of wacky and surprisingly sincere title that I think everyone who is even slightly interested should try reading. Not sure if there is anything else like it!

An engaging and thought-provoking narrative that delves into profound themes while keeping readers on the edge of their seat. The characters are wonderfully complex, and the world-building is immersive.

I expected this to be gross, but I didn't expect it to be a transcendently gross experience.

It's a little hard to review The Divine Flesh because I've never read anything like it. It has elements that have been done before, but they're twisted together to make something unique (you'll appreciate that line more when you read it, I promise). Possession, eldritch horror, redemption, assimilation, elements of the rape-revenge film genre - they're all here, but a little changed from their normal selves.

The thing that made it work for me was how much of a whirlwind it is - the reader never gets a second to take a breath, have a break and think, "What?" Like the characters, you're locked in this spiral of gore and flesh and human evil and eldritch madness from Page 1 until the end. The narrative style is relentless - I don't think I've ever read a book that can be more aptly described as a rollercoaster.

Yet another thing that worked immensely for me was the swapping POVs. I normally would be annoyed when differing points of view aren't marked or separated because having them flow together can get really confusing, but in The Divine Flesh, this flow is precisely the point. DF and Jennifer's voices are different and you can tell who is who most of the time, but they're so closely tied together that separating their POVs like you would normally would make the narrative feel forced.

I don't think I can talk about the character development without spoilers, but suffice it to say that this tale has layers (both in storytelling and in flesh) and Huff masterfully carries us through an arc that is both inevitable and a total surprise.

Keep an eye on the triggers for this one, but if you can handle it, I would highly recommend reading this - I suspect it will be a classic of the genre in time.

I was unprepared for how much I would love this book. With a blend of cosmic and body horror, the stakes of this book increase so steadily and confidently that multiple times I was sure I had to be approaching the climax, only to delightedly discover how much of the book remained. The characters are engaging, the ending is earned. I look forward to placing a copy on my shelf.

Holy body horror, literally. As someone who loves religious horror and is easily icked out by body horror, The Divine Flesh was a WILD reading experience. It required frequent breaks to hold my hands over my eyes and say what......the fuck. I loved it so much.

What the f did I just read? (on a good way). I’m a huge fan of splatter punk and this book DELIVERED. I loved how gory it was but without it feeling too over the top; just the right amount of guts hanging here and there. The description of the “angels” created by the D.F. will hunt me in my dreams forever, I mean, the author clearly has an amazing imagination and I applaud her! Definitely would recommend to anyone interested in reading Lovecraftian horror with funny dialogues. Btw, the only reason I didn’t give it a full 5 stars rating is because at the beginning of the story is pretty confusing to decipher what line belongs to what character since we are always hearing the D.F. inside Jennifer’s head, however it became kinda intuitive to recognize it by the time I reach 50% of the book. Thanks to the editor for the ARC. Would definitely buy a copy upon publication!

The Divine Flesh is the definition of a horror book. It’s the most unhinged, out there horror but in the best way. Just a few pages in had me asking myself what did I sign up for? I enjoy splatter punk (enjoy May not be the right word?) and this seems to be a good description for the book. It was gross and gory and like I already said just absolutely unhinged.

The formatting of the book was told in a dual POV which could get a little confusing at times. In general, this book is not for everyone but for all fans of body horror and with a strong mind and stomach. I do think this book could have been trimmed down a bit since it felt like the story was lagging. I felt like it could have been more impactful as a shorter book or even as a longer novella.

In general, I give this book a 3/5. Thank you to Drew Huff, Dark Matter Ink, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy for an honest review.

Review left on Goodreads 2/5/2025

A tentacular splatter-punk hybrid of Videodrome and The Blob twirled in a melange of neon prose. Unique and reverent to it’s eldritch origins with an atmospheric squelching and pervasive psychedelic grime.