Title: To Be DevouredAuthor: Sara Tantlinger
First Published: July 29, 2019
Publisher: Apocalypse Party, Twisted Retreat
Pages: 90
Genre: Horror, LGBTQ, Psychological, Transgressive Fiction
Format: Hardcover, Paperback
Source: Book Box, Purchased
Rating:
Synopsis:
What does carrion taste like? Andi has to know. The vultures circling outside her home taunt and invite her to come understand the secrets hiding in their banquet of decay. Fascination morphs into an obsessive need to know what the vultures know. Andi turns to Dr. Fawning, but even the therapist cannot help her comprehend the secrets she’s buried beneath anger-induced blackouts.
Her girlfriend, Luna, tries to help Andi battle her inner darkness and infatuation with the vultures. However, the desire to taste dead flesh, to stitch together wings of her own and become one with the flock sends Andi down a twisted, unforgivable path. Once she understands the secrets the vultures conceal, she must decide between abandoning the birds of prey or risk turning her loved ones into nothing more than meals to be devoured.
Get the Book: AmazonReview
To Be Devoured is a book that does not get enough praise. A disquieting story of madness, obsession, and hunger. The narrator Andi is teetering on the edge and finds herself increasingly drawn to the vultures that circle her home. Her girlfriend Luna is the one constant that keeps Andi tethered to reality, but is it enough?
I read the book in one sitting, the prose was magnetic and the ending left me breathless. It is a psychological horror story that made me feel disoriented and disgusted, and I loved every second of it. One of my favorite novellas of all time, and a story I still think about.
Quote
“Their beaks will make a banquet of our decay. Our deaths deserve no other meaning than to be devoured. Our bodies have ruined the earth, it seems only right such bodies should give back to nature, to the animals.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Sara Tantlinger
Sara Tantlinger is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil’s Dreamland: Poetry Inspired by H.H. Holmes. Her other books include Cradleland of Parasites, Love for Slaughter, The Devil’s City (co-written with Matt Corley), and the Stoker-nominated novella To Be Devoured. She also edited the anthology Not All Monsters, which features stories by women in horror. She graduated from Seton Hill University with a BA in English literature and creative writing, and later with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction. She is an active member of the HWA (Horror Writers Association) and also co-organizes the Pittsburgh HWA Chapter.
Her love of horror started in middle school where she discovered the Fear Street and Goosebumps books, Rob Zombie, and an Ouija board. When she’s not writing, reading, or teaching, Sara enjoys coffee, music, movies, and is prone to over-attachment to fictional characters and cats. She also possesses a collection of sea glass and shark teeth fossils, which make her want to move to the seaside as soon as possible.
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