Formats: Print, audio, digital

Publisher: Tor Nighfire

Genre: Blood & Guts, Sci-Fi Horror

Audience: Adult

Diversity: Lesbian main character, Bisexual side character, Gay, Autistic author,

Takes Place in: Palm Springs, California

Content Warnings (Highlight to view): Amputation, Animal Abuse, Child Endangerment, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Gore, Illness, Kidnapping, Self-Harm, Suicide, Torture, Violence

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I was SO excited when I got approved for this ARC, you have no idea. There’s a lot of death in Fabulous Bodies, like, A LOT. The violence and gore are over the top, which I found fun, but may be too much for some readers. It’s also super campy, which again, I personally love but other readers might find ridiculous. That doesn’t mean the deaths aren’t disturbing, as people die in all number of creative ways and some of them are truly horrific. It’s basically splatterpunk without the sexual violence and misogyny that seems to plague so much of the genre. A fun read with great dark humor that I finished in only a few sittings. I just couldn’t bear to put it down.

Poppy Stringer is a confident (or full of herself, depending on your point of view), queer woman who knows she’s fucking hot and will do almost anything to become a famous influencer. Her Instafeed (the book’s fictional version of Instagram) makes her lifestyle look glamorous, but the single mom is struggling to fund it. To support her lavish lifestyle, Poppy turns to body snatching. After all, her giant house in Palm Springs won’t pay for itself. She sees what she does as a victimless crime because no one is actually getting hurt and the loved ones of the deceased are merely inconvenienced. After all, the bodes she steals are just hunks of meat who don’t care what happens to them. And it’s worth it to give her five-year-old daughter, Marlo, the childhood she never had, even if it means spending less time together. Being raised by adoptive parents who didn’t really want her has hardened Poppy into someone cold and calculating who will do almost anything to get ahead, including grave robbing. She’s sees herself as a shark, surrounded by fish who’re satisfied nibbling on scraps.

Poppy isn’t an entirely selfish person; she does care deeply about her daughter and her best friend Noah. But when other people, like Poppy’s neighbor Ashley, try to get close to her, Poppy is quick to push them away. Noah honestly puts up with a lot from her, frequently babysits Marlo while her mom is out working her “other job,” which she tells him nothing about. While dining out with Noah, Poppy gets a call from a mysterious woman who somehow found her number. The woman offers her five million to retrieve a body. But not just any body, it’s the body of Poppy’s favorite musician and queer icon, Eddie Micheals, recently killed by a drunk driver (a tragedy which Poppy used for content). Despite her reservations, Poppy agrees to take the job. After all, five million is life-changing money. Enough that she can quit the grave robbing business.

Everything goes smoothly when she steals the corpse. A little too smoothly, in fact, and Poppy ignores her gut feeling that something isn’t right. She’s driving down a desert road with the body in her van when Eddie wakes up. The now undead rockstar reveals that he’s made a deal with the devil which gave him fame, fortune, and the ability to control people with his voice (think Jesse Custer from Preacher or Killgrave/The Purple Man from Marvel Comics). He just needs Poppy to help him run a few “errands” before sunrise and then she’s free to go. But of course, nothing is ever that simple. Poppy is forced to bear witness as Eddie tells people to murder, mutilate, and maim themselves and others, leaving a trail of bodies through Palm Springs.

While the story starts with Poppy as an almost-villain protagonist, there are some things even she won’t stoop to, which Eddie is all too happy to indulge in–mostly hurting and killing others. She may be a shark, but she’s a nurse shark while Eddie is a great white. The two are similar in that they’re both artists willing to do “anything” to get ahead (although Poppy learns that night that she actually has limits) and neither sees themselves as a “bad” person. Eddie tells Poppy “I’m not a bad guy, I’m just a survivor.”

Despite the horrible things he does, he never sees himself as a villain, which forces Poppy to question her own amoral actions and gives her the chance to have a nice character arc. Yes, Poppy is an awful person, and all I can say is “Yay for unlikable, problematic gay characters!” I love how terrible and morally gray she is. And Eddie is a delightfully campy villain. Queer readers deserve to have complex queer characters. Unfortunately, some folks have adopted right-wing puritanical viewpoints around moral purity. These are the people who argue kink doesn’t belong at Pride and want to censor anything that makes them uncomfortable which includes problematic queer characters. To these morality police I say:f you can’t handle queer characters who aren’t cutesy, pure, beacons of morality then maybe you should stick to cozy fic and stay away from horror. Liking a problematic character does not mean you would approve of their actions in real life, and trying to sanitize queer content is a particularly nefarious form of censorship.

At one point Eddie tells Poppy that art is what makes life worth living, and he’s not wrong. Yet, Poppy realizes love is what really matters. Poppy may be a morally grey narcissist, but she’s nowhere near as bad as Eddie, because unlike Eddie, there’s one thing she cares about more than fame, and that’s her daughter. It’s her love for her daughter that keeps her from completely crossing the line into villainy and which ultimately gives her the strength to fight Eddie. Fabulous Bodies is another Tingle book that proves love is real. Fabulous Bodies may be an action-packed roller coaster ride of gore, but at its core it’s still about the power of love.