gothishbookworm 's review for:

The Deading by Nicholas Belardes

4.25

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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The Deading is a horror dystopian following a handful of characters living in Baywood; a small fishing town in California. Baywood has a passionate bird watching community and a successful oyster farm. The story starts when a horrific epidemic emerges through snails. This epidemic causes people to ‘dead’, in which they collapse and essentially show all symptoms of death, but then rise again almost like before. The small fishing town is then cut off from the rest of civilization by the government and the community has to figure out how to live in this ground zero. Things play out very similarly to what everyone, myself included, experienced during the real life pandemic of Covid-19. Hysteria, paranoia, isolation, rituals, beliefs, and people changing overnight, as well as lots of confusion on what to do and where to go to get information. Our main character Blas navigates the world as a high schooler the only way he knows, through birds. His mom and brother are infected and become ‘risers’, leaving him alone, and afraid. Blas eventually has to plan how to escape this infected town with other immune folks like him. 

I liked this audiobook, the body horror starts off instantly in the beginning of the book. Snails are described in a way that I’m not sure if I will ever find them cute again. The beginning part of the story follows the overtaking and infection of the owner of the local oyster farm. I do wish there was more from this perspective, and more of the up close part of body/eco horror in the book. However, the horror feeling follows through the book.

The main person that the story follows is Blas, who has to grapple with the epidemic in his town and in his brother Chango, and mother Miriam. Blas has a huge passion as a bird watcher; this personality trait of Blas isn’t very beloved by his brother Chango and many other residents of this small fishing town.

The other character we follow is a friend of Blas, Kumi. Kumi is a fellow bird watcher and is more mature and thoughtful of her perspective. She also has to experience the horrors of the rituals of the ‘risers’, as she infiltrates their grotesque ceremony.

I do think that The Deading does talk about birds a little too much for my own taste of a horror book (especially when birds are not the source of horror). It was understandable as the characters the story most closely follows are bird watchers. Their escapism is birds, and who wouldn’t need an escapism in an epidemic. The story can be a bit confusing, but it did not bother me too much. I thought it was an apt portrayal considering the characters are cut off from all means of communication other than face to face. It would be very confusing to be isolated from the outside world by the government with absolutely 0 answers. 

The audio part of the book was fantastic and had a pretty large cast with spot on voices for the characters. I really enjoyed it and it was quite immersive. My only critique would be that the enunciation of names was a little unclear, making it a little harder to follow along the POV’s.

I enjoyed this book, I thought it was a fantastic commentary on pollution, isolation, and how quickly a cult can form. The horror was skin crawling, with an unearthly and creepy atmosphere and a diversely flawed character cast. 4.25 stars.