The dead are easy to talk to. Live people, not so much.Charlie Sulliven thinks she knows all the secrets of the dead. Raised in a funeral home, she’s the reluctant “Ghoul Girl,” her reputation tied to a disastrous Halloween party. But navigating her life as a high school sophomore is an anxiety-inducing puzzle to her. She haunts the funeral home with her parents, emo older brother, Garth, their … older brother, Garth, their pistol-packing Gramma, and the glass-eyeball-devouring dachshund, Lothar.
Chewed human bodies are appearing in her parents’ morgue…and disappearing in the middle of the night. The bodies seem tied to a local legend, Catfish Bob, who has resurfaced in the muddy Milburn river near Charlie’s small town. When one of Charlie’s classmates, Amanda, awakens in the cooler as a flesh-eating ghoul, Charlie must protect her newfound friend and step up to unravel the mystery…and try to avoid becoming lunch meat for the dead.
“FLESH by Laura Bickle features the best dachshund ever to appear in literature.”
-Michael Warren Lucas, Author of IMMORTAL CLAY
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Charlie isn’t afraid of the dead. It’s her tenth grade classmates that can send her screaming. Halloween is rolling around again and she isn’t expecting much excitement. Especially after the fiasco from last year. Her parents didn’t appreciate her throwing a party at their funeral home.
This year Charlie is keeping a low profile. She’s not looking for trouble but trouble finds her when a deceased classmate, Amanda, who’s body should be resting in a morgue drawer, gets up and starts munching on corpses. That’s just the beginning of many bizarre events that start happening. Faster than you can say Ghoul Girl, she’s scrambling to hide Amanda and find out why the dead aren’t staying dead.
This book is tagged as YA Horror and there were some gruesome scenes. Like the one where Amanda starts chowing down on live worms like they’re gummies. And when she chews on a corpses arm like it’s a drum stick. Those scenes made me squirm. But Laura also made them funny. The family dog, Lothar, loves Amanda because she shares her kibble. Yep he’s a man eater, kind of. He even liked the worms.
Flesh doesn’t have tons of action, but there’s enough to keep the story moving fast. The character’s act genuine. And there’s a legend about Bob the Catfish that adds an interesting twist.
I was torn over how to rate this book. Keeping in mind this was aimed at the younger audience, I went with 4 stars. It didn’t wow me but I had fun and I think it hit the mark for the young adult readers.
Laura Bickle’s Undead in Flesh are not your typical zombies. They are a unique blend.
These youngsters do not bite off more than they can chew in this sometimes funny tale of the Undead and they have an ability to go with the flow to save their town.
Great storytelling with plenty of fear and danger and a pace that makes for some spine tingling, hair raising reading of the horror kind.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Flesh by Laura Bickle.
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Charolotte “Charlie” Sullivan just wants to be a normal teenager accepted by her peers. Unfortunately, when your family owns the funeral home you also live in and your mother is the coroner, classmates tend to make assumptions, jump to conclusions, and stereotype you. It was so easy to relate to Charlie in the teenager wanting to be accepted aspect. All teens want to be popular, belong, and feel accepted. When bodies start appearing with weird types of damage, and then they start to disappear from the morgue, any slight change of normalcy evaporates. This is especially true when one of the bodies is a girl from school and she awakens in the morgue right in front of Charlie. Is she hallucinating or is there something sinister going on in their town?
I don’t normally read books that focus on zombies or ghouls – they just aren’t my thing. I made an exception because I love Laura Bickle’s writing. She tells great stories that are engaging to the point I’m almost obsessed with the books. I don’t want to adult because I want to finish her books. Flesh is no exception. I was enthralled with Charlie, Garth, Amanda, and Lothar. Charlie is a wonderful character trying to make her way in the world while being an outcast because of the family business and being constantly harassed by a very controlling mother. She’s not a strong character at the beginning and it was fun to watch her kind of toughen up as the story progressed.
The story that’s told in Flesh has horror undertones but isn’t the “scare the daylights out of you” kind of book. The story features creepy events, sinister happenings, and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat. I mention these things because I don’t particularly like horror (think Stephen King, whoever thought the Saw movies where a good idea, and Friday the 13th). I do, however, like soft horror (is that even a thing? If not, it is now), which is how I would classify Flesh. Flesh also has moments of joy, the rekindling of old friendships, and the coming together of some unlikely allies to combat the mysterious ghouls with ties to an urban legend by the name of Catfish Bob. I love the balance that the author used. I enjoyed the story, characters, theme, and pacing of Flesh.
Someone will like this, but it’s just not the book for me.
It was several chapters in before anything at all happened. When things started to happen, they were small and not very exciting to me. I personally, got bored reading this one.