Hello Ink Drinkers! It’s that time again! Welcome to my leg of the tour for one on my most anticipated reads of 2023! Delicious Monsters by Leslie Sambury. This tour is hosted by Hear Our Voices tours and I received a copy of the book for an honest review.
Synopsis:
The Haunting of Hill House meets Sadie in this evocative and mind-bending psychological thriller following two teen girls navigating the treacherous past of a mysterious mansion ten years apart.
Daisy sees dead people—something impossible to forget in bustling, ghost-packed Toronto. She usually manages to deal with her unwanted ability, but she’s completely unprepared to be dumped by her boyfriend. So when her mother inherits a secluded mansion in northern Ontario where she spent her childhood summers, Daisy jumps at the chance to escape. But the house is nothing like Daisy expects, and she begins to realize that her experience with the supernatural might be no match for her mother’s secrets, nor what lurks within these walls…
A decade later, Brittney is desperate to get out from under the thumb of her abusive mother, a bestselling author who claims her stay at “Miracle Mansion” allowed her to see the error of her ways. But Brittney knows that’s nothing but a sham. She decides the new season of her popular Haunted web series will uncover what happened to a young Black girl in the mansion ten years prior and finally expose her mother’s lies. But as she gets more wrapped up in the investigation, she’ll have to decide: if she can only bring one story to light, which one matters most—Daisy’s or her own?
As Brittney investigates the mansion in the present, Daisy’s story runs parallel in the past, both timelines propelling the girls to face the most dangerous monsters of all: those that hide in plain sight.
Review:
Ooo.. how can I explain how amazing this book is? I’m literally at a lost for words.
This book is a giant ball of trauma, and ways to overcome it. This book is told from a couple different perspectives but the main two are Daisy and Brittney.
Daisy is traumatized by a past relationship, an overbearing yet neglectful mother, and seeing ghosts. Her story takes place after she moves onto the land her mother inherited. There’s a creepy old house on said land that she was warned very early on to never go into. One night however, Daisy and her friends decide to sneak into the mysterious house, but they come to regret that decision…
Brittney, whose timeline takes place 10 years later, is also a young girl trapped in a traumatizing situation. Her mother is not only manipulative and abusive, but she dates perpetually abusive men which escalates the abuse that is placed on Brittney. Brittney’s story follows her documentation of the Lost and Forgotten Black Girls, and ends up staying at the house, now converted into an Air BnB, that Daisy disappeared from. Will her experience be anything like Daisy’s?
This book is beautifully written and covers many topics that we consider to be taboo, ie. grooming, parental abuse, manipulation of your own child. These are the topics that we need to address to break the generational curses that are hovering over us as black people. The horror aspect was an added bonus to an already intense novel. Even though it was a bit on the long side, I couldn’t put it down. I was sucked it and it would not let go until I devoured every bit. I only wish I could reread it again for the first time.
Content/Trigger Warnings
Childhood sexual assault (off page, details discussed), childhood physical abuse (corporal punishment, off page, described), childhood physical abuse (confinement punishment), childhood neglect, gaslighting, grooming, suicide (off page, mentioned), killing of a goat (off page, described), discussion of fatphobia, body horror/gore, violence, death.
Pisces: The Book Lover 