Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy Snyder | Book Review

This is a wild one!

Sister, Maiden, Monster by Lucy A. Snyder

Released February 2023

Source: Received for Review Consideration

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Sister, Maiden, Monster is a visceral story set in the aftermath of our planet’s disastrous transformation and told through the eyes of three women trying to survive the nightmare, from Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lucy A. Snyder.

To survive they must evolve.

A virus tears across the globe, transforming its victims in nightmarish ways. As the world collapses, dark forces pull a small group of women together.

Erin, once quiet and closeted, acquires an appetite for a woman and her brain. Why does forbidden fruit taste so good?

Savannah, a professional BDSM switch, discovers a new turn-on: committing brutal murders for her eldritch masters.

Mareva, plagued with chronic tumors, is too horrified to acknowledge her divine role in the coming apocalypse, and as her growths multiply, so too does her desperation.

Inspired by her Bram Stoker Award-winning story “Magdala Amygdala,” Lucy A. Snyder delivers a cosmic tale about the planet’s disastrous transformation ... and what we become after.

My 2 Cents for Free!

This book was SO entertaining. It hooked me from beginning to end and I feel bad that I stuck it near the bottom of my little to-be-reviewed pile because I thought I didn’t want to read about a pandemic. Don’t be like me. This book is great and the body horror is exquisite.

It takes place soon after Covid and after all of its accompanying bullshit has wreaked havoc on society. People are jaded and tired and must keep going to keep the economy fed. But this thing is so much worse in so many ways. Bloody, transforming, deadly for the older and the unfortunate and it hits people in a myriad of different ways from the asymptomatic to the you will most definitely die if you don’t get your butt to the ER in time. And there isn’t much time . . . It also changes you so maybe death would be preferable. Who am I to say? It’s all kind of bleak if you think about it. Still, as I was reading, it never felt painfully depressing like some of these bleak novels that hit way too close to reality sometimes do. I don’t know if that makes any kind of sense but that was my experience. It moved and it kept me reading and I never felt like I was jumping into the pit of despair.

It tells its story in three parts as three women all become important parts of this strange, humanity-altering plague. Erin, Savannah and Mareva are very different people when this thing hits the world. Erin’s living the life everyone expects her to live with a blah guy, Savannah is a sex worker who enjoys her work and Mareva is just doing her best to live a healthy life after suffering from tumors for the majority of it. The plague changes them and empowers them and I won’t say anything more except that I was transfixed by their personal stories and their transformations. Loved it.

This book is squirmy and gross and sexy too. If you’re a fan of body horror and like sex mixed in with your scares, you’re going to love that about it. If you’re not, well, be warned because I’m not kidding. There are many dark things that happen here but the story doesn’t sit too long in those terrible feelings and if you asked me to describe this book I’d say it was “bleak fun” which makes no sense at all but you know it when you feel it. And I felt it from beginning to end.

⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

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