New favorite author, new favorite short story collection. There is no story under 3.5 stars in here, a total blast. Every single story is unique and captivating, you won’t put it down. For body horror and David Cronenberg fans. The stories should be read more than one time, on a second read you discover things you’ve missed, metaphors so subtle that escape you the first time around. I am very impressed and I can’t wait to read another Rose Keating story. Also, I’ll be the first in line for a novel written by her.
Oddbody – 4.5/5 so good, a metaphor for depression
Squirm – 4/5 going with the metaphors, here we have taking care of a disabled parent
Mouthful – 3.5/5 very weird, but I feel like what comes after the ending would be the interesting part
Bela Lugosi Isn't Dead – 5/5 absolutely adored this story
Pineapple – 4/5 we love body horror and David Cronenberg here
Next to Cleanliness – 5/5 “To put it simply, there is something wrong with you. I’m going to pull that wrongness now.”
Notes on Performance – 6/5 “Would you weep if you too were a thing made of absences, suddenly to find yourself whole again?” wow, this story was perfection
Eggshells – 5/5 what a trip
The Test – 4/5 it reminded me of Only ever yours by Louise O’Neill
The Vegetable – 4/5 what a concept
Thank you to NetGalley and Canongate Books for providing me with the ARC.

"It's my movie. I can change whatever I like..." - Bela Lugosi Isn't Dead

Rose Keating in this debut collection has included ten bold and unsettling short stories that confront themes of desire, fear and shame, each one asking how far the bounds of the human form can be pushed, stretched and subverted.

Featured here are provocative tales that take on themes about the female experience and turns them inside out portraying them as weird and surreal.

In one a woman finds herself navigating a co-dependent relationship with a ghost. In another a waitress gives birth to an egg during her breakfast shift, and a doctor puts his patient on a cleanse to ‘purify’ her mind, body and soul.

The author does not hold back with the imagery. These are stories that will appeal to fans of weird fiction and body horror.

An outstanding artistic romp into what the modern fairytale is. Each story in this collection is unique and delectable, strange, and surreal. Keating’s dark imagination is paired with a lighthearted and absurd humour that adds to the stories rather than diminishing belief of the story world. One of the most difficult parts of a collection of short stories is keeping the quality and themes of each at a high standard and not having peaks and troughs, and Keating’s collection all exist on the same outstanding and strange wavelength. This debut is the most exciting I’ve read, and the dissection of the body, the abject, and as Keating writes in ‘Mouthful,’ ‘I marvel at my capabilities as I don’t stop. At my capacity for fluidity, transformation, change,’ which summarises this brilliant and fresh new voice in literary fiction.

Rose Keating’s Oddbody is an inventive and deeply disquieting collection that delivers exactly what it promises - stories that stretch, prod, and dismember the human form and psyche in equal measure. These ten tales are steeped in body horror and brimming with discomfort, creating a reading experience that is as gripping as it is grotesque.

Keating’s writing is accessible and direct, which allows the surrealism and horror to take center stage without stylistic distraction. The collection hits its stride after a somewhat on-the-nose beginning; several early stories felt a bit too heavy-handed in their metaphors, which may discourage some readers from continuing. That would be a shame, as the latter half contains some truly remarkable and unsettling pieces.

Two standouts for me were "Pineapple" - a sharp portrayal of bodily autonomy and unease in intimacy, framed through extreme body modification - and "Squirm," which is, without exaggeration, one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever read. It’s the kind of horror that latches onto something unspoken and festering in your own subconscious.

While some thematic repetition does creep in - desire, shame, mental unraveling - it doesn’t diminish the impact of each piece. There’s not a single story I would call forgettable or skippable, and that’s no small feat for a debut collection.

Oddbody isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s an easy recommendation for fans of weird lit, body horror, and anyone craving horror that crawls under your skin and stays there. It’s unsettling, yes - but it’s also bold, clever, and painfully human.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Oddbody is a striking, offbeat debut that pulls you in with its stunning cover and keeps you slightly off-balance throughout. The stories are surreal, often fragmentary, and written with a dry wit that reminded me slightly of Blindboy Boatclub’s work—though Keating’s focus feels more inward than outward, more emotional than satirical.

There’s a lot of promise here. Some stories were a bit too top level, like they were deliberately keeping the reader at a distance, but others offered these sudden, disarming flashes of clarity. It didn’t all come together for me, but the originality is undeniable.