This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham

 
This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham
My Rating: ★★★

I received a copy from Sourcebooks Fire through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine feel good enough to go to a music festival, they had no idea they were in for a threat against everything that makes them who they are. The group of best friends survived a pandemic, but not the one you’re thinking about. They survived Hollowing, which caused a percentage of the human population to become zombies, or ghouls as people like to call them. In their case, they’re among the many who became Hollowed. Now that it’s finally safe enough to resume everyday life thanks to SynFlesh, they’ve received permission to visit a music festival. Unfortunately for them, someone is poisoning as many Hollowed folks as they can at the festival, and it’s causing them to go feral.

I love zombies, so I knew I had to read this the second I read the synopsis. We follow a group of friends who were brought together after the Hollowing, which turned them into flesh eating zombies. Because the Hollowed aren’t dead and are able to resume their lives as usual thanks to SynFlesh, a synthetic meat just for Hollowed folks, people began to call them ghouls. Life is going as well as it can for the four friends, so they decide to celebrate graduating high school by going to a music festival.

Because I love zombie stories, I also love when these stories step outside of the usual zombie box. In this case, Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are friends facing a world against them because they were infected by the mysterious pathogen that made them one of the many Hollowed. They live with what they did when they were first feral, as many Hollowed folks killed and consumed people. Many of the chapters begin with a flashback to one of these four character’s memories from that time, either from what they remember while they were feral, or what life was like when they first returned home. I think I might’ve liked this book more if it took place during this time, as these were the most well-thought out and interesting parts of the book.

That said, I think the book is good for what it is, a young adult paranormal novel. We spend a lot of time bouncing back and forth between each of these friends, and watch them get to the bottom of the mess that is someone poisoning them, causing them to go feral at levels Hollowed folks has never gone before. At its core, this is a book about friendship, and the lengths people are willing to go to help and save the people they care about. There’s also a little bit of mystery, since they put on their amateur sleuth hats, determined to get to the bottom of what is going on. If you’re expecting a traditional horror novel, this won’t be the book for you, but I think it’s worth a read if you’re a big fan of all things zombie.

It’s also worth noting that there is a page devoted to content warnings right before the first chapter. It’s really nice to see more and more books list whether or not there is something that may trigger someone, whether it’s at the top of each chapter or somewhere after the title page. I think the list in this book is probably the most comprehensive one I’ve seen so far.