Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle

fabulous bodies: ruthless fashion influencer vs charismatic undead popstar

Image courtesy of Mindy🥰

poppy is one of the worst types of people in the world: an influencer; however, as popular as she is, she’s not exactly making bank, so as a fun side gig, she moonlights as a corpse thief, sweet-talking her way in and out of morgues and delivering the dead to sick fucks who want to use them as target practice, among other things. when she gets a mysterious, sketchy as hell call requesting that she procure the body of her favorite (and freshly dead) musician, queer icon eddie michaels, she finds the cash too tempting to pass up and agrees to snatch him; this turns out to be a poor decision, as almost immediately upon acquiring eddie’s slowly putrefying carcass, he wakes up and proceeds to really fuck up her night.

ok! first things first, i’m gonna be real: i found eddie absolutely delightful initially. alas, his sequined ass did take things too far but for quite a while there i was lowkey like, ok? let him cook? i also found poppy fuuuuckin insufferable and while that never really changed much, i did, at least, respect her more by the end of it all, and i appreciated that, while she definitely learned some hard lessons and grew a lot as a person, she was still Herself through it all? i feel like authors often make the mistake of putting an unpalatable protag through the wringer and having it conveniently transform them into a sweetheart with a totally different personality, and that shit always feels forced as hell.

this was fun, it was funny, it was fast paced, nonstop action, it was totally absurd. i laughed out loud. my heartstrings were unexpectedly tugged. it was WILDLY, gloriously, derangedly violent - i feel like chuck tingle and brian mcauley should join forces someday and write a slasher together because their respective abilities to think up deaths that are hilarious and bizarre while also being genuinely wince-inducing feels.. uncannily compatible. 

i had a goddamn blast with this, 🦷🦷🦷🦷🦷

huge thanks to jordan at tor for hooking me up with the arc💚

💋fabulous bodies will be available on july 7th from tor nightfire💋