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ARC Review: Gorgeous Gruesome Faces by Linda Cheng
After Mina, the third in their tight-knit trio, jumps to her death, Sunny Lee and Candie find themselves with a rift in their friendship. Even after such traumatic events, Candie attends a new K-pop workshop, and Sunny follows her in an attempt to confront her about the things they’ve been through. But the workshop only brings up more questions, and accidents that seem more and more purposeful settle on the other attendants.
I have… no idea where to begin with this one.
Well, I know one thing I want to say. This was a completely and utterly insane novel to me, and I loved every moment of it.
I honestly had no clue what to expect going into it. So the summary said that it would contain suicide, that there will be body mutilation, that this was absolutely categorized as a horror novel. And if you sell a book as something akin to Yellowjackets, I will be expecting cannibalism (I have never seen Yellowjackets, but I am aware girls are eating girls in that show. Literally.) But those warnings didn’t even begin to closely describe what I went through with each page. I read this in LESS THAN 24 HOURS because
1) it was only like 300 pages but mainly
2) because I just needed to know what was going to happen to Sunny.
The fantasy, cult-like elements of the plot came a little out of nowhere, but after a while I grew used to it and couldn’t find myself complaining. Especially since the imagery was terrifying. Disappointed that there was no cannibalism, but the atmosphere the author set out to create made up for that. Uncanny humanoid creatures lurking in dark corners, chasing our characters; girls morphing into something not like themselves—the eyes just a bit too wide and dark, the cheeks and chin just a little too sharp—ripping their faces off in a madness.
AND THERE ARE LESBIANS ON TOP OF THAT! I CAN ONLY WIN!! I completely forgot that this was also a sapphic love story amidst all the…horrors.
I loved Sunny and Candie, and I WILL be seated for the sequel.
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