A botanical body horror thriller set in a school, with an ace protagonist who’s struggling with his feelings for his best friend.

I’m not much of a horror fan, but I did enjoy the thriller aspects – the mystery of working out where these monsters are coming from, what’s summoning them, and why everybody seems so cagey about Andrew and Thomas. I found the ending quite ambiguous and unsatisfying, and I don’t really understand it, but maybe that’s because I was reading in a rush.

The ending hinges on a flashback to the previous school year. I was slightly frustrated that it came so late, and delivers some fairly crucial information. After reading The Distance Between Us so recently, I wonder if I might have been more satisfied if the information had been doled out slowly, with us jumping back and forth between past and present.

There’s some queer rep in the book. There are several queer characters, and a friend invites Andrew to the school’s GSA meetings. When Thomas confesses his feelings for Andrew, Andrew comes out as asexual, and it goes disastrously. Not fun, but it felt authentic.

I don’t have strong feelings about this book. We discussed it at Ace Book Club and some people seemed really down on it, especially the ending; others really enjoyed it. I thought it was fine, but I have no inclination to reread or find other books by this author.

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