🇺🇸 Set in the Brandywine and the Chesapeake Bay area, Virginia. 
POV: We follow a single parent getting by as a palm reader despite not professing any psychic abilities. They recently returned to their hometown and catch up with an old flame, which seems to have instigated some sort of psychic abilities in them. 
 
Mood Reading Match Up:
-Bizarro vibes in a swampy/coastal atmospheric setting
-Nature’s revenge focused on sea creatures and insects 
-Supernatural amateur sleuthing, dashes of magical realism
-Themes and symbolism of grief, parenthood, non-biological family, entity, life, the meaning of family, the parent-child bond, hope, unconditional vs all-consuming love, nature, evolution, and loyalty. 
 
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🐺 Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags 🐕
✏️ Writing: The storytelling was first person and heavy on dialogue while light on exposition…it gave me this sense of being dropped mid-conversation into the characters’ lives. While that technique def added to the mystery, it also left me feeling disoriented, struggling to distinguish characters and settings sometimes. 
 
🫥 Characters: The characters in this book were such a study in moral ambiguity, with each one slightly off-kilter. Their realistic, rapid-fire dialogue was a highlight, though at times it felt overwhelming (to me). 
 
🗺️ Worldbuilding: The setting was well-crafted, providing enough sensory detail to imagine the world vividly. However, some descriptions were confusing, making it challenging to visualize certain scenes. Despite this, the sensory aspects of the narrative and the cinematic horror descriptions filled in those gaps, so I didn’t dwell on it.
 
🔥 Fuel: Everything initially hinged on the fate of a missing child and the mysterious circumstances surrounding a suicide. Then the emergence of a human-like creature added another layer of intrigue. There’s also amateur sleuthing and supernatural exploration.
 
🐢🐇 Pacing: The pacing seemed intentionally choppy, contributing to the evolution of the bizarre atmosphere. I found I was eager to uncover the truth but also wanted the story to conclude. Like no way was I going to DNF, but I kept wishing I had fewer pages left until the end. I don’t think it was a length issue, I think it was a fatigue issue on my part. It started to veer off into this bizarro, surreal territory that I kept drifting further from. 
 
🎬 Scenes: No complaints here – the narrative exceled in crafting eerie and unsettling scenes, with a cinematic quality that vividly captured natural horrors and…transformative moments. In the end I wasn’t sure what happened, but I understood there was a symbolism in all the surrealism and grief themes. 
 
🤔  Random Thoughts: This story merges the mundane with the supernatural, creating a unique blend of emotional and bizarre experiences. Overall, it was a surreal foray into the depths of grief and the inexplicable and was a unique narrative experience. It’s a book that might leave you perplexed and intrigued in equal measure, ideal for those who enjoy a blend of emotional depth and supernatural elements. I think this could be an excellent read for a book club discussion. It isn’t gory or gratuitous in the horrors and the ‘body’ horror is a vital part of the story. I think each reader may have a different interpretation.  

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Content Heads-Up: Missing child. Suicide. Loss of a spouse. Body horror, fluids. Estrangement from child. Grief (on page; descriptive). 
Rep: The story features primarily White American and racially ambiguous American characters.
 
Format: Library via Overdrive
 
“Reviews are my musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶 refined by my AI bookworm bestie ✨”

There is a lot about this book that is great, but in the end it just ends up imploding under its own themes and contradictions. 

I love how fucking weird and wild the final third of this book gets. I’m here for that. I also love how heart wrenching portions of this story were. How it explored love and loss.

However, in the final pages, the characters begin to act out of character. Or better yet instantly develop without any time for the new development. And then the themes of this book don’t hold up to the realities of the story itself. Those final pages also made me feel like the main character was just a plot device the entire time and it made me feel a bit cheated. 

I love Clays earlier writing, this one just wasn’t it.

Chapman's language reeled me in but the twists kept me hooked. The body horror is so gross and compelling that I couldn't look away. I never really knew what was going on but that speaks to the great quality of their writing. They frame the story so that you can't help but feel the confusion and stressed-out parent horror from Madi's perspective.