Waif

For such a short book this felt like it should have been split into two. The first part was brilliant, genuinely disturbing body horror. The second part meandered around a weird freakshow fetish group. Whilst the first part did lead into the second it was nonetheless quite a jarring change in pace.

First off, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed the first part. This was genuine ‘wtf?' reading at its best. The concept of extreme plastic surgery as horror one is brilliant realised and the psychology presented here is cleverly used. If this was the whole novel, I would have given this an easy 5 stars for the shear shock value.

The second part doesn't work quite as well unfortunately, being a more generic freakshow thing. The biggest issue here is the main character feels like she changes personality dramatically across the divide between these sections, and it is an abrupt divide. The whole effect is to give a disjointed feel and weaken the impact of this second section.

Despite its flaws, I cant help but recommend this for that twisted first half though. It is utterly brilliant.

tw: multiple instances of rape, sexual assault, assault, internalised queerphobia, homophobia, extreme non-consensual medical experimentation, extreme porn, mentions of necrophilia, body horror, stalking

what a strange little story.
i'm not entirely sure if i liked it but it's well-written and definitely different than anything else i've read.