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A review by bookcadaver
Headcheese by Jess Hagemann
4.0
HeadCheese is probably going to be the hardest book I’ll ever choose to review. I don’t even have a clue where to begin. I only recently found out about the book, two sentences into the blurb and I knew I had to get this.
I love weird, bizarre, gross, fetishy books, and this book hit literally every point I was looking for. The writing is unreliable, it's got a nonsense approach to how the...book plays out, it felt like I was reading one of my fever dreams.
There’s a large cast of characters listed before you begin the book, which was incredibly helpful when reading because I probably skipped back to that list over fifty times, trying to remember who was who & who did what. There’s a few ‘main’ characters throughout the book who were easily memorable, but the whole cast brought something to the book, and connected to the story in important ways.
I found Headcheese to also be very informative. Yes, I was reading about amputee fetishists, cannibals, war veterans with PTSD, but there were chapters that were non-fiction, which also included footnotes at the bottom of the page, which I was using very frequently to research on my own. (For example, I’ve not shut up for the past day about Miracle Mike, who was a headless chicken that survived for 18 months without its head. I now know more chickens that I did yesterday)
There were also so many references to real life crimes that were committed, Horror movie references (They even used Lost River as a reference, which I barely ever see being spoken about), quotes taken from a popular fetish website that's used by thousands. They mingled in so well with that arcs of the characters, and never felt unneeded.
I have never read something so weird, fascinating and intriguing before. There is also art scattered throughout the book, which was absolutely gorgeous, and helps readers picture what Hagemann was trying to create with their writing.
Headcheese is engrossing, it’s confusing, strange...I could probably give several examples of how much this book left me in a trance from start to finish. It’s filthy, factual and was an absolute blast to read.
TWITTER | BLOG | INSTA
I love weird, bizarre, gross, fetishy books, and this book hit literally every point I was looking for. The writing is unreliable, it's got a nonsense approach to how the...book plays out, it felt like I was reading one of my fever dreams.
There’s a large cast of characters listed before you begin the book, which was incredibly helpful when reading because I probably skipped back to that list over fifty times, trying to remember who was who & who did what. There’s a few ‘main’ characters throughout the book who were easily memorable, but the whole cast brought something to the book, and connected to the story in important ways.
I found Headcheese to also be very informative. Yes, I was reading about amputee fetishists, cannibals, war veterans with PTSD, but there were chapters that were non-fiction, which also included footnotes at the bottom of the page, which I was using very frequently to research on my own. (For example, I’ve not shut up for the past day about Miracle Mike, who was a headless chicken that survived for 18 months without its head. I now know more chickens that I did yesterday)
There were also so many references to real life crimes that were committed, Horror movie references (They even used Lost River as a reference, which I barely ever see being spoken about), quotes taken from a popular fetish website that's used by thousands. They mingled in so well with that arcs of the characters, and never felt unneeded.
I have never read something so weird, fascinating and intriguing before. There is also art scattered throughout the book, which was absolutely gorgeous, and helps readers picture what Hagemann was trying to create with their writing.
Headcheese is engrossing, it’s confusing, strange...I could probably give several examples of how much this book left me in a trance from start to finish. It’s filthy, factual and was an absolute blast to read.
TWITTER | BLOG | INSTA