Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle

Blurb:

An instant USA Today bestseller • A CALIBA Golden Poppy Award finalist

From Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, comes Fabulous Bodies, a supernatural joyride where Drive meets Beetlejuice.

Poppy Stringer was born to be a star.

An aspiring fashion influencer by day, Poppy moonlights as a grave robber to make ends meet, wheeling and dealing dead bodies across Palm Springs.

When her hero, the flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar Eddie Michaels, unexpectedly dies, Poppy gets a call to retrieve his body from the medical examiner’s office for a lucrative sum. It could be the last job she’ll ever need—if everything goes to plan. But the night’s delivery quickly veers off course when Eddie wakes up.

Now Poppy must fight for her life if she hopes to survive this blood-soaked joyride of carnage and extravagant entertainment.

Also by Chuck Tingle:
Lucky Day
Bury Your Gays
Camp Damascus
Straight

Review:

This book was a strange experience for me; I didn't really like the protagonist much, felt the social-media-related stuff was a bit too cringeworthy, but then I really started to hate the villain more. And the author took the horror bits to unexpected length, which really made the battle for survival enjoyable, and the ending just gave a sweet enough aftertaste to make the overall journey memorable and created interest in further work by the author in the future.

The story starts with Poppy giving us a preview of her night job of stealing dead bodies and delivering them to her clients for the right price and learning about her day job being an influencer. We get to learn about her daughter and the strange relationship she has with her. Poppy immediately comes out as an overconfident, arrogant, and uncompromising character, referring to herself as a shark. It really is hard to like her based on the intro, which might have been what the author was aiming for.

This tale starts slowly, then suddenly it notches up a gear, and everything starts to come apart for the protagonist. A undead rockstar kidnaps her, taking her on a strange journey, being a witness to his insane gore fest as he keeps killing people gruesomely. We slowly learn about his reason for being immortal and why he picked Poppy as a companion. And our heroine must decide how far she will go to survive and learn what should be her priority in life.

While enjoying fiction, often there may come a time when you don't like the narrator or the protagonist, and sometimes it takes more than half the book for he/she to grow on you. Poppy is one such protagonist for me; it wasn't until she got into serious trouble that I started feeling sorry for her and rooting for her despite my initial annoyance for her. And in the final third, Tingle kind of provides a redemption arc for her, resulting in an almost perfect ending for this disturbing adventure.

 Among the characters other than Poppy most were fleshed out nicely except for Noah maybe, whose reasoning for helping Poppy wasn't really explained much. Eddie Michaels was a well-developed villain, incorporating the rockstar persona with an insane level of selfishness and disregard for everyone else around him. Marlo was a sweetheart and created with such finesse that any reader would want strongly for her to survive the ordeal.

The lore regarding the undead villain, his origins and range of his power seemed farfetched, then we realized the absurdity was what made this thrilling. Poppy's search for a means to defeat him was also enjoyable. 

But the story seemed to become much more interesting as it turned visceral in the last third. Tingle really pushed the body horror stuff to the extreme, and the action sequences during the final act were really something. But despite all insanity and horror the author skillfully made the mother-daughter relationship evolve, making their love for each other stand out as the main force triumphing in the end. 

I experienced this in the audiobook format, and Mara Wilson did a fine job with her snarky yet honest style. But this book could have really been turned into a masterpiece with some music letting us experience the Eddie Michaels songs and a few voice actors playing different actors.

The main problem is that the snarky voice of Poppy did make the story a chore during the first few chapters. And I would have loved it if the lore regarding the supernatural elements had to have been explored a bit more. But Chuck Tingle did a fine job with his body horror and a mother's will to protect her daughter plotline quite brilliantly, and I will be checking out his work in the future.

Guest Reviewer Bio:

I am Rakib , a Surgical Oncologist from Bangladesh, currently working for the government, who enjoys fantasy, sci-fi and horror in all their forms. My favorite hobby used to be searching in the used book stores of Dhaka for hidden gems (quite hard to find good fantasy or sci-fi when you live in a country like Bangladesh) which I could add to my collection and slowly devour later. I try to read 50-60 books, and about twice as many comics/manga each year. I also love rock music, rpgs, and fighting games. I have been writing about these for almost twelve years on my blog and also try to be active on Goodreads among other sites. You can follow me on Bluesky @ihate00.bsky.social