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The Faceless Thing We Adore
Eat, Pray, Love goes full Lovecraft in this queer, feel-good cosmic horror that reflects on gaslighting and emotional abuse.
Lemon, poppy seed, sun-warmed sand. These visions convince Aoife to quit her job, leave her manipulative boyfriend, and escape to the isolated shores of the Farmstead commune. There, among its charismatic and hedonistic residents, Aoife finds everything she’s been a community that adores her, the freedom to indulge, and the promise to be a part of something miraculous.
But darkness underpins her airy new way of life. A disappearing cave looms above an ocean no one dares step foot in, mysterious crying fills the night hours, and a rot is spreading across the island. But perhaps most concerning is the commune’s reverence for their leader, Jonah—a love tinged with fear that Aoife knows all too well.
When Aoife’s boring old life comes crashing into her bold new one, loyalties are tested, unleashing a spiral of unspeakable violence that threatens to fracture reality itself. At the helm, Aoife finds herself desperately trying to protect everyone and everything she’s grown to love. Awkward, clumsy Aoife, who was always told she was weak, will soon realize the depths of her strength—and the pleasures of her rage.
Lemon, poppy seed, sun-warmed sand. These visions convince Aoife to quit her job, leave her manipulative boyfriend, and escape to the isolated shores of the Farmstead commune. There, among its charismatic and hedonistic residents, Aoife finds everything she’s been a community that adores her, the freedom to indulge, and the promise to be a part of something miraculous.
But darkness underpins her airy new way of life. A disappearing cave looms above an ocean no one dares step foot in, mysterious crying fills the night hours, and a rot is spreading across the island. But perhaps most concerning is the commune’s reverence for their leader, Jonah—a love tinged with fear that Aoife knows all too well.
When Aoife’s boring old life comes crashing into her bold new one, loyalties are tested, unleashing a spiral of unspeakable violence that threatens to fracture reality itself. At the helm, Aoife finds herself desperately trying to protect everyone and everything she’s grown to love. Awkward, clumsy Aoife, who was always told she was weak, will soon realize the depths of her strength—and the pleasures of her rage.
417 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 5, 2025
78 people are currently reading
7747 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 150 reviews
August 20, 2025
This one is WILD. Aoife’s journey unravels like a spiraling fever dream, exposing the fragile and desperate need to belong buried inside us all; an ache that's so powerful we’d sacrifice anything to satisfy it. This culty sporror tale crawled under my skin and unsettled me.
A must-read for horror fans who love:
Hailey Piper–style storytelling
Communes and cults
Toxic friend groups
Cosmic horror energy
The “missing friend” trope
Body horror and unsettling transformations
The Garden documentary on MAX
Sporror (spore-based horror)
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion vibes
Bold, hallucinatory, and unforgettable
A must-read for horror fans who love:
Hailey Piper–style storytelling
Communes and cults
Toxic friend groups
Cosmic horror energy
The “missing friend” trope
Body horror and unsettling transformations
The Garden documentary on MAX
Sporror (spore-based horror)
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion vibes
Bold, hallucinatory, and unforgettable
August 3, 2025
3,5 ⭐️
First of all, isn’t the cover simply gorgeous? 😳 It’s honestly the reason I requested this title - that, and the queer horror category.
Aoife just ran away from a toxic, abusive relationship with her boyfriend to a place that mysteriously captivated her from a postcard. A fateful meeting with two women leads her to a remote island, far from civilization. The small community there seems like a paradise, like somewhere she could finally belong.
So what if a woman went missing quite recently, and the villagers on the other side of the island are wary of the eclectic group of people? Aoife feels like she’s supposed to be there. And for the first time in her life, she wants to do something just for her own sake. It feels, impossibly, like coming home.
Was it truly her decision, though?
The Faceless Thing We Adore has an incredibly interesting premise, tackling several themes such as the corruption by absolute power and blind faith in cultish environment, and the power of our own choice in spite of the world’s cruelty trying to shape us into something equally brutal and greedy. I wouldn’t classify it as horror though, despite the horrifying occurrences that made me squirm in discomfort, and the actual eldritch being the cult worshiped.
As the story’s written in first person present tense, we’re constantly in Aoife’s head, and let me tell you, she mostly made me exhausted and frustrated. Which isn’t to say she’s written badly, not at all - she’s a young woman who may have physically gotten out of an abusive relationship, but the emotional inner struggle is a beast, especially as she jumped right into joining a cult. I desperately clutched all the bits of sympathy I had, and I genuinely rooted for her to start appreciating herself for who she is, but I still found her simply unlikable. It’s very authentic, though, because she’s been gaslit and thoroughly trained into putting herself down. Her yearning to be someone, to be loved and needed and necessary for people, was breathing on me directly from the pages.
I know this feeling, thick and heavy, the window of time between fucking up and paying for it. Craig would draw those times out, for days. He thought it would fix me. It didn’t; I haven’t learned.
I was stupid, nosy, paranoid. Missing girls, cabins, caves, strange lore, all those things crumble, smashed by solid reality: being unwanted. Messing up. Again.
When they kick me out, where will I go? There’s nowhere.
There were some sapphic entanglements, but I didn’t find the relationships compelling enough to put any kind of emphasis on them.
Ultimately, I’m rounding down because of the writing. It’s quite lyrical, making me feel like I’m floating through the story dreamily, not really touching the ground. I felt disconnected from Aoife, the island, and all the side characters. And that’s my failing, I need something more down-to-earth to make me invested, to have an emotional impact on me. The story itself also got progressively surreal and I struggled with imagining anything. Though as I said, that’s fully on me, and I hope other readers won’t have the same problem.
Thank you to NetGalley and Page Street Horror for approving my request for this arc. The Faceless Thing We Adore by Hester Steel is out on Aug 05 2025.
First of all, isn’t the cover simply gorgeous? 😳 It’s honestly the reason I requested this title - that, and the queer horror category.
Aoife just ran away from a toxic, abusive relationship with her boyfriend to a place that mysteriously captivated her from a postcard. A fateful meeting with two women leads her to a remote island, far from civilization. The small community there seems like a paradise, like somewhere she could finally belong.
So what if a woman went missing quite recently, and the villagers on the other side of the island are wary of the eclectic group of people? Aoife feels like she’s supposed to be there. And for the first time in her life, she wants to do something just for her own sake. It feels, impossibly, like coming home.
Was it truly her decision, though?
The Faceless Thing We Adore has an incredibly interesting premise, tackling several themes such as the corruption by absolute power and blind faith in cultish environment, and the power of our own choice in spite of the world’s cruelty trying to shape us into something equally brutal and greedy. I wouldn’t classify it as horror though, despite the horrifying occurrences that made me squirm in discomfort, and the actual eldritch being the cult worshiped.
As the story’s written in first person present tense, we’re constantly in Aoife’s head, and let me tell you, she mostly made me exhausted and frustrated. Which isn’t to say she’s written badly, not at all - she’s a young woman who may have physically gotten out of an abusive relationship, but the emotional inner struggle is a beast, especially as she jumped right into joining a cult. I desperately clutched all the bits of sympathy I had, and I genuinely rooted for her to start appreciating herself for who she is, but I still found her simply unlikable. It’s very authentic, though, because she’s been gaslit and thoroughly trained into putting herself down. Her yearning to be someone, to be loved and needed and necessary for people, was breathing on me directly from the pages.
I know this feeling, thick and heavy, the window of time between fucking up and paying for it. Craig would draw those times out, for days. He thought it would fix me. It didn’t; I haven’t learned.
I was stupid, nosy, paranoid. Missing girls, cabins, caves, strange lore, all those things crumble, smashed by solid reality: being unwanted. Messing up. Again.
When they kick me out, where will I go? There’s nowhere.
There were some sapphic entanglements, but I didn’t find the relationships compelling enough to put any kind of emphasis on them.
Ultimately, I’m rounding down because of the writing. It’s quite lyrical, making me feel like I’m floating through the story dreamily, not really touching the ground. I felt disconnected from Aoife, the island, and all the side characters. And that’s my failing, I need something more down-to-earth to make me invested, to have an emotional impact on me. The story itself also got progressively surreal and I struggled with imagining anything. Though as I said, that’s fully on me, and I hope other readers won’t have the same problem.
Thank you to NetGalley and Page Street Horror for approving my request for this arc. The Faceless Thing We Adore by Hester Steel is out on Aug 05 2025.
May 27, 2025
ARC for review. To be published August 5, 2025.
4.4 stars
Cult, cult, cult, cult, cult, CULT! If you follow me, you know I’m almost never going to let a good cult story pass me by, so here we go!
Aoife (the book tells you how to pronounce it, but I’m still not sure I have it right…..”ee-fe” I think?) is in a miserable relationship and a dead end job when she discovers a postcard from a beautiful island from a girl named Elise in her boss’s office. She impulsively heads to the island and then gets stranded there with no money.
She meets couple Larissa and Giuliana and is drawn to them. She’s also fascinated by the home they describe and asks if she can tag along. Giuliana does not want her to go but she finagles a map from a waitress and makes her own way there anyway.
The Farmstead commune seems wonderful, exactly what Aoife has been dreaming of. However, a darkness emerges in the forms of Jonah, the leader, who tries to explain things to her and a girl who may be held captive. What is this place? And what will become of Aoife?
This description really just touches on what the novel is about, but that’s enough to get you started. At first glance 400+ pages seems long, and the book probably could have been edited some, but there’s a lot that happens, too. The latter part of the book is told from a very interesting perspective which I enjoyed and, overall, I liked this far more than I thought I might. Good, innovative horror. Recommended.
Horror Aficianados Summer Reading Challenge 2025 - book set on an island.
4.4 stars
Cult, cult, cult, cult, cult, CULT! If you follow me, you know I’m almost never going to let a good cult story pass me by, so here we go!
Aoife (the book tells you how to pronounce it, but I’m still not sure I have it right…..”ee-fe” I think?) is in a miserable relationship and a dead end job when she discovers a postcard from a beautiful island from a girl named Elise in her boss’s office. She impulsively heads to the island and then gets stranded there with no money.
She meets couple Larissa and Giuliana and is drawn to them. She’s also fascinated by the home they describe and asks if she can tag along. Giuliana does not want her to go but she finagles a map from a waitress and makes her own way there anyway.
The Farmstead commune seems wonderful, exactly what Aoife has been dreaming of. However, a darkness emerges in the forms of Jonah, the leader, who tries to explain things to her and a girl who may be held captive. What is this place? And what will become of Aoife?
This description really just touches on what the novel is about, but that’s enough to get you started. At first glance 400+ pages seems long, and the book probably could have been edited some, but there’s a lot that happens, too. The latter part of the book is told from a very interesting perspective which I enjoyed and, overall, I liked this far more than I thought I might. Good, innovative horror. Recommended.
Horror Aficianados Summer Reading Challenge 2025 - book set on an island.
October 11, 2025
this was a cult horror that made my brain feel mushy with all its twists and turns, with a bunch of manipulative shitty men that deserved to suffer!! had some great characters with some genuinely great writing (although a bit overwhelming at times to know what exactly was going on). and the ending was actually my fav part
May 30, 2025
A cosmic horror from the point of view of the cultists, with healthy doses of alienation/female rage/wanting to belong thrown into the mix. The novel certainly goes into some dark places, and there is some truly horrific imagery here, which only increases the further we get to the end. So why was this SO disappointing and frustrating to read?
Lack of meaningful character growth. Aoife is our main girl, and it is through her fragile eyes that we initially see the cult. We see her fear and wonder, see how the people there connect & work towards freeing the unseen being they so fervently worship. The problem really comes in her final transformation. Aoife really stopped being someone I wanted to read about, and there wasn't anything redeemable about her. It's like I'm supposed to connect or sympathize with something that is more like the creature from The Thing or The Blob. The only characters who I was interested in didn't really seem to matter at the end (like Giulia or Kiera), and were there just for the cosmic entity to play around with.
The pacing is also wildly inconsistent. There were numerous points where it felt like the perfect end point for the book (like the frantic confrontation with the cops at the beach, or finding out the true source of the rot in the commune), but it just kept going. And going.
The gorgeous writing and the cosmic horror vibes weren't enough unfortunately.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.
Lack of meaningful character growth. Aoife is our main girl, and it is through her fragile eyes that we initially see the cult. We see her fear and wonder, see how the people there connect & work towards freeing the unseen being they so fervently worship. The problem really comes in her final transformation. Aoife really stopped being someone I wanted to read about, and there wasn't anything redeemable about her. It's like I'm supposed to connect or sympathize with something that is more like the creature from The Thing or The Blob. The only characters who I was interested in didn't really seem to matter at the end (like Giulia or Kiera), and were there just for the cosmic entity to play around with.
The pacing is also wildly inconsistent. There were numerous points where it felt like the perfect end point for the book (like the frantic confrontation with the cops at the beach, or finding out the true source of the rot in the commune), but it just kept going. And going.
The gorgeous writing and the cosmic horror vibes weren't enough unfortunately.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book.
May 16, 2025
I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The Faceless Thing We Adore follows Aoife, a woman who feels an inexplicable calling to a remote island after eating a cookie (of all things), and runs away from her insipid life straight into the arms of a professed cult. At its core, this book is about finding yourself and where you belong, and the choices you make along the way to strengthen your sense of self.
Going in, I expected something inspired by the movie Midsommar (2019) or in the vein of Bunny by Mona Awad. While there are certainly echoes of those works here, reflected by the appearance of a cult, cosmic horror, and a surreal sense of dread, Steel’s novel ultimately manages to stand in a league of its own.
The book hits many high points; it’s full of tension and wondrous dread, and often reads like a fever dream born out of beachy heat or drugs. Some scenes are sure to stay with me long after I put the book down.
That said, the journey to those peaks is exceedingly long. The story’s beginning drags, and there are stretches that feel vacant, lost in their own literary ambition. At times, the prose focuses so much on being artful that it loses sight of the story, the characters, and the stakes. The book forgets to book, leaving you admiring page after page of prose as if you were viewing paintings in a museum. Personally, I think it would have benefited from trimming about 100 pages, but I’m not a lit fic girlie, so that might just be my own preference.
In the end, the novel is precious as it is: a unique blend of mystery, horror, and art, and well worth the ride if you’re willing to let it take you somewhere strange and new.
The Faceless Thing We Adore follows Aoife, a woman who feels an inexplicable calling to a remote island after eating a cookie (of all things), and runs away from her insipid life straight into the arms of a professed cult. At its core, this book is about finding yourself and where you belong, and the choices you make along the way to strengthen your sense of self.
Going in, I expected something inspired by the movie Midsommar (2019) or in the vein of Bunny by Mona Awad. While there are certainly echoes of those works here, reflected by the appearance of a cult, cosmic horror, and a surreal sense of dread, Steel’s novel ultimately manages to stand in a league of its own.
The book hits many high points; it’s full of tension and wondrous dread, and often reads like a fever dream born out of beachy heat or drugs. Some scenes are sure to stay with me long after I put the book down.
That said, the journey to those peaks is exceedingly long. The story’s beginning drags, and there are stretches that feel vacant, lost in their own literary ambition. At times, the prose focuses so much on being artful that it loses sight of the story, the characters, and the stakes. The book forgets to book, leaving you admiring page after page of prose as if you were viewing paintings in a museum. Personally, I think it would have benefited from trimming about 100 pages, but I’m not a lit fic girlie, so that might just be my own preference.
In the end, the novel is precious as it is: a unique blend of mystery, horror, and art, and well worth the ride if you’re willing to let it take you somewhere strange and new.
August 6, 2025
”I’d follow her anywhere; it’s like she’s that voice of the universe.”
The Faceless Thing We Adore feels like if Midsommar and Hell Followed With Us had a baby. A very ancient, rotting and disturbingly tender baby.
”I’ve held back anger all my life; I can’t let it in.”
I decided to request this ARC for two reasons: the cover (how gorgeous is it???) and for the cult vibes (because, well… obviously) but what kept me interested was how raw and personal it all felt. I love love love the creepy commune horror but this is honestly a story about what it means to be gaslit and broken by someone who’s supposed to love you. And it’s told from the victim’s POV which just makes it hurt even more.
”A human is a potent little thing, and inside me they are transmuted into power, shuddering and ready.”
Now, I will say… The second half didn’t hit as hard for me. The pacing kind of flattened out and by the time I reached the end, it didn’t really feel like one. It blurred a little too much and lost some of that intensity and intrigue from the beginning. I think it could’ve worked better with fewer pages. Still, it was an amazing read.
”We never figured out how to fit our fractured selves together, did we?”
You’ll like this book if you’re into:
🛐 Communes/cults
🌌 Cosmic horror
💀 Body horror/transformations
🖤 Female rage
🧠 Survivor POVs
A thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.
The Faceless Thing We Adore feels like if Midsommar and Hell Followed With Us had a baby. A very ancient, rotting and disturbingly tender baby.
”I’ve held back anger all my life; I can’t let it in.”
I decided to request this ARC for two reasons: the cover (how gorgeous is it???) and for the cult vibes (because, well… obviously) but what kept me interested was how raw and personal it all felt. I love love love the creepy commune horror but this is honestly a story about what it means to be gaslit and broken by someone who’s supposed to love you. And it’s told from the victim’s POV which just makes it hurt even more.
”A human is a potent little thing, and inside me they are transmuted into power, shuddering and ready.”
Now, I will say… The second half didn’t hit as hard for me. The pacing kind of flattened out and by the time I reached the end, it didn’t really feel like one. It blurred a little too much and lost some of that intensity and intrigue from the beginning. I think it could’ve worked better with fewer pages. Still, it was an amazing read.
”We never figured out how to fit our fractured selves together, did we?”
You’ll like this book if you’re into:
🛐 Communes/cults
🌌 Cosmic horror
💀 Body horror/transformations
🖤 Female rage
🧠 Survivor POVs
A thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased and honest review.
August 10, 2025
Ummm… that was weird… but I liked it.
they-told-me-to-read-it
June 14, 2025Rec via Jess!
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. All opinions are my own.
I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway. All opinions are my own.
November 13, 2024
Hester Steel’s THE FACELESS THING WE ADORE is a dark, dreamy, and cosmic exploration of a woman’s experiences with a totally-not-a-cult and her search for identity and freedom. By the mysterious seaside, Aoife’s suppressed rage and path to self-realization take an eldritch turn in a story that constantly has jaw-dropping twists. A highly recommended read.
November 26, 2025
So weird, and so weirdly compelling.
October 26, 2025
(rounded down from 4.25)
The true horror isn't cults and ancient gods, it's controlling men. I approve this book's message.
On a serious note, this was an excellent idea for a horror novel. A young woman who is used to being belittled and overlooked by the world and her partner finds acceptance and love in a cult, but we all know what the ultimate goal of any cult worshipping an ancient entity will be. Aoife is the perfect person to be lured in by a sense of belonging and love in a cult, and slowly evolves as she understands the nature of the ancient power the cult is dedicated to and what its return intends.
The only reason I would not rate this higher is that the latter forty per cent was a lot more interesting to me, and I wish we got more of that rather than the setup and events of the first half of the book.
The true horror isn't cults and ancient gods, it's controlling men. I approve this book's message.
On a serious note, this was an excellent idea for a horror novel. A young woman who is used to being belittled and overlooked by the world and her partner finds acceptance and love in a cult, but we all know what the ultimate goal of any cult worshipping an ancient entity will be. Aoife is the perfect person to be lured in by a sense of belonging and love in a cult, and slowly evolves as she understands the nature of the ancient power the cult is dedicated to and what its return intends.
The only reason I would not rate this higher is that the latter forty per cent was a lot more interesting to me, and I wish we got more of that rather than the setup and events of the first half of the book.
August 12, 2025
3.5 stars
I went in thinking this would be your typical cult story full of secrets and lies, but it turned out to be so much more and way weirder. I wasn’t expecting the cosmic horror angle at all and I loved where it took the story. Besides the otherworldly elements, there were also some surprisingly sweet moments about found family and love. Who knew that an eldritch horror cult could foster such close bonds? However, I did feel it dragged in places and could have been trimmed down. But, despite the slow pacing, I enjoyed this and was satisfied with how it all wrapped up.
I went in thinking this would be your typical cult story full of secrets and lies, but it turned out to be so much more and way weirder. I wasn’t expecting the cosmic horror angle at all and I loved where it took the story. Besides the otherworldly elements, there were also some surprisingly sweet moments about found family and love. Who knew that an eldritch horror cult could foster such close bonds? However, I did feel it dragged in places and could have been trimmed down. But, despite the slow pacing, I enjoyed this and was satisfied with how it all wrapped up.
October 21, 2025
I offer this book my highest compliment: it was so weird
Read
August 15, 2025I dnf’d this just past the halfway point, page 225. I wasn’t enjoying the writing style or the characters at all. The book title’s great but that’s the best thing about it.
November 14, 2025
Starting a cult surrounding this book because it absolutely deserves the hype. This is not a neatly packaged story of an abused girl finding love; Steel puts all the complexity of loving someone who hurts you again and again into words, the ache of begging to be taken back even when you know it hurts.
TFTWA explores the humanity behind cults, the type of people who are preyed on with messages of love and acceptance, what it is to leave an abusive relationship and yearn to go back.
Steel’s pacey prose draws the reader deep into the whirlwind that is Aoife’s life. She’s isolated, lonely, yearning for deeper connections, for something more. And that something more finds her in the form of a postcard meant for her boss and a destination: an idyllic island in the mediterranean. When she arrives, there are people, so many ready to extend a hand of friendship…. and many warnings. The island is perfect, the commune wonderful and welcoming and desirable. There’s also a darkness lurking beneath.
The commune teaches how we, humans, act just to please our peers, how regular people can be manipulated into terrible things. Steel understands how to make these people sympathetic then throws their worst crimes at our feet and makes us find we still care about the people they are at heart. Because, as much of a horror book as this is, it’s also a book about love, no matter how pure or rotten. It’s a book for a father who wants his child back, a woman who finds love and does terrible things and finds that love still persists, a wife who will do whatever for her husband, her family, because those are the people she loves. It is love for a child who has been dealt a terrible hand. Aoife’s journey is one of love, how through love she shapes her world, how she survives, how she sacrifices. In the end, it all comes back to love.
TFTWA explores the humanity behind cults, the type of people who are preyed on with messages of love and acceptance, what it is to leave an abusive relationship and yearn to go back.
Steel’s pacey prose draws the reader deep into the whirlwind that is Aoife’s life. She’s isolated, lonely, yearning for deeper connections, for something more. And that something more finds her in the form of a postcard meant for her boss and a destination: an idyllic island in the mediterranean. When she arrives, there are people, so many ready to extend a hand of friendship…. and many warnings. The island is perfect, the commune wonderful and welcoming and desirable. There’s also a darkness lurking beneath.
The commune teaches how we, humans, act just to please our peers, how regular people can be manipulated into terrible things. Steel understands how to make these people sympathetic then throws their worst crimes at our feet and makes us find we still care about the people they are at heart. Because, as much of a horror book as this is, it’s also a book about love, no matter how pure or rotten. It’s a book for a father who wants his child back, a woman who finds love and does terrible things and finds that love still persists, a wife who will do whatever for her husband, her family, because those are the people she loves. It is love for a child who has been dealt a terrible hand. Aoife’s journey is one of love, how through love she shapes her world, how she survives, how she sacrifices. In the end, it all comes back to love.
July 9, 2025
So this might be my favorite book?? I don't have words. I have so many words.
The feminine urge to be a better man.
The feminine urge to be a God.
This book is so well written. Aoife's journey in this is so painful to follow. We find this girl who is only like 22 or so. I had to keep remembering that as I went along. Like, oh my god, she is younger than me.
She ran away at 17 with Ugh Craig and apparently nobody cared????? So now she is living life as Ugh Craig's servant basically, working two jobs and doing all the chores and STILL getting yelled at because Ugh Craig is UGH.
So like of course after they breakup she gets into a cult. She literally has nothing. At every point you, and sometimes she, are yelling at her to stop making these decisions. It is hard to watch. But at the same time you get it because this poor girl, you know?
This book is about becoming more than what the world *cough*men*cough* want you to be, more than what they believe you can be.
This book is about becoming the person that hurt you, something unimaginably worse.
I am not usually a cosmic horror girlie. But this book kind of isn't cosmic horror??? In a way??? It is very much also a book about The Horrors of Man, you know? Like yeah there is a butterfly eldritch beast monster but I still hate Jonah and Craig more.
I can not praise this book enough. I can't wait to see, like, full-blown essays on it. Please read it!!
Thank you to NetGalley and Page Street Horror for the ARC! All opinions are my own.
The feminine urge to be a better man.
The feminine urge to be a God.
This book is so well written. Aoife's journey in this is so painful to follow. We find this girl who is only like 22 or so. I had to keep remembering that as I went along. Like, oh my god, she is younger than me.
She ran away at 17 with Ugh Craig and apparently nobody cared????? So now she is living life as Ugh Craig's servant basically, working two jobs and doing all the chores and STILL getting yelled at because Ugh Craig is UGH.
So like of course after they breakup she gets into a cult. She literally has nothing. At every point you, and sometimes she, are yelling at her to stop making these decisions. It is hard to watch. But at the same time you get it because this poor girl, you know?
This book is about becoming more than what the world *cough*men*cough* want you to be, more than what they believe you can be.
This book is about becoming the person that hurt you, something unimaginably worse.
I am not usually a cosmic horror girlie. But this book kind of isn't cosmic horror??? In a way??? It is very much also a book about The Horrors of Man, you know? Like yeah there is a butterfly eldritch beast monster but I still hate Jonah and Craig more.
I can not praise this book enough. I can't wait to see, like, full-blown essays on it. Please read it!!
Thank you to NetGalley and Page Street Horror for the ARC! All opinions are my own.
January 12, 2026
Ugh, I really, really wanted to like this book. The first third was great - I liked Aoife and her story. Wanting to belong is such a human struggle that it always hits right in the core. Put that struggle against a backdrop of something more and less than human seems like the perfect recipe with a dash of a creepy cult with too many secrets.
For an eldritch horror, this plot pulled it's trigger way too quick with confirming the reality of what should be shifting, intangible, and hard to pin down. I wanted to keep guessing if this cult was worshipping something real or if it was all just Jonah trying to keep control of his people. Then, the pacing got even worse when it's revealed Aoife is the vessel and I had to slog through 200 some pages of stream of consciousness, purposefully confusing narrative. That style of writing would have absolutely nailed the concept if it was used during the climax instead of halfway through the books. It's so, so hard to read and I debated dnf-ing.
What came subtly in the first half of the books, messages about belonging and outcasts and men with too much power became way too heavy handed at the end. A whole paragraph legitimately saying "fuck the system" is really dumbing it down for readers.
I really enjoyed Aoife becoming like those who abused her against the backdrop of all this cosmic horror. It took something very real - abused becoming abusers - and painted it in a garish brush that really made it stick out to me. I enjoyed Aoife's relationships with Larissa and Kiera. Jonah was appropriately menacing and paternal at the same time. Larissa's "wedding" to the Unseen was chilling and very fun to read along with Myri's infection by the rot.
Overall, a book that swung hard in the first third and lost all of its energy.
For an eldritch horror, this plot pulled it's trigger way too quick with confirming the reality of what should be shifting, intangible, and hard to pin down. I wanted to keep guessing if this cult was worshipping something real or if it was all just Jonah trying to keep control of his people. Then, the pacing got even worse when it's revealed Aoife is the vessel and I had to slog through 200 some pages of stream of consciousness, purposefully confusing narrative. That style of writing would have absolutely nailed the concept if it was used during the climax instead of halfway through the books. It's so, so hard to read and I debated dnf-ing.
What came subtly in the first half of the books, messages about belonging and outcasts and men with too much power became way too heavy handed at the end. A whole paragraph legitimately saying "fuck the system" is really dumbing it down for readers.
I really enjoyed Aoife becoming like those who abused her against the backdrop of all this cosmic horror. It took something very real - abused becoming abusers - and painted it in a garish brush that really made it stick out to me. I enjoyed Aoife's relationships with Larissa and Kiera. Jonah was appropriately menacing and paternal at the same time. Larissa's "wedding" to the Unseen was chilling and very fun to read along with Myri's infection by the rot.
Overall, a book that swung hard in the first third and lost all of its energy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2025
This book did existential horror really well! I feel that it captured the specific kind of fascination that people tend to have with cults. It was an uncomfortable read for me but I believe that's kind of the point. There was this duality of a cult doing increasingly worrying (and, later on, truly horrific) things while making Aoife feel loved and understood like she'd never been. The things the narrative tells the reader are all positive and warm, they're all about community, while the things the narrative shows are, well, textbook culty and great at crawling under your skin.
This exact cognitive dissonance is incredibly sharp and uses narrative techniques in a purposeful way to shape the reader's experience. That was really well done!
I think this book isn't for everyone (the best books aren't) but the readers it speaks to will love it to the center of the universe and back.
I have mixed feelings about the ending. On one hand, I admire what Steel has done from an artistic perspective. The book didn't set out to answer the secrets of cult-like behavior, only to describe them. (And it does an exceptional job at that.) Keeping that in mind, the ending makes sense. At the same time, I, personally, wish it had a bit more of a resolution from a story perspective for it to be truly satisfying.
Thank you to Page Street Horror and NetGalley for the eARC!
This exact cognitive dissonance is incredibly sharp and uses narrative techniques in a purposeful way to shape the reader's experience. That was really well done!
I think this book isn't for everyone (the best books aren't) but the readers it speaks to will love it to the center of the universe and back.
I have mixed feelings about the ending. On one hand, I admire what Steel has done from an artistic perspective. The book didn't set out to answer the secrets of cult-like behavior, only to describe them. (And it does an exceptional job at that.) Keeping that in mind, the ending makes sense. At the same time, I, personally, wish it had a bit more of a resolution from a story perspective for it to be truly satisfying.
Thank you to Page Street Horror and NetGalley for the eARC!
August 9, 2025
~I got an ARC of this, thank you to Page Street Horror and Netgalley~
A feverish roller coaster of rejection, acceptance, and evolution set amongst a "cult" worshiping something Unseen and terrible.
I waited literal years to read this book! I couldnt say if it were two or three, but certainly a long time. And it absolutely did not disappoint with its feverish first person pov, multitude of horrors, and realistic trauma responses! One of the best and weirdest books I’ve read this year.
A feverish roller coaster of rejection, acceptance, and evolution set amongst a "cult" worshiping something Unseen and terrible.
I waited literal years to read this book! I couldnt say if it were two or three, but certainly a long time. And it absolutely did not disappoint with its feverish first person pov, multitude of horrors, and realistic trauma responses! One of the best and weirdest books I’ve read this year.
September 29, 2025
4.5 ⭐️ I love a little cosmic bit and a cult. Docked points for some revenge moments I found to be lacking. You can’t make a character that hatable and not follow through with a fitting end.
June 24, 2025
Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is what I imagine having a LSD fuelled fever-dream to feel like.
The imagery is vivid and the author doesn’t shy away from the taboo. Cults have always intrigued me and this one poses the question: what if their beliefs are real? The bizarre eldritch god they worship makes me glad cults don’t actually have the power to summon this kind of thing 😳
However, the reason I couldn’t give this 4 or 5 ⭐️s is because aoife had so much potential but her character fell a bit flat. Also I would have hoped for a little more than hinted at romance between her and Kiera 💔
This book is what I imagine having a LSD fuelled fever-dream to feel like.
The imagery is vivid and the author doesn’t shy away from the taboo. Cults have always intrigued me and this one poses the question: what if their beliefs are real? The bizarre eldritch god they worship makes me glad cults don’t actually have the power to summon this kind of thing 😳
However, the reason I couldn’t give this 4 or 5 ⭐️s is because aoife had so much potential but her character fell a bit flat. Also I would have hoped for a little more than hinted at romance between her and Kiera 💔
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 11, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC!
It was a nice change of pace for a protagonist to realize a group was in fact a cult and, instead of being horrified or running away, realizing that's what they wanted and joining. After all, if everyone condemned cults as strongly as most cult horror books would have you believe, they wouldn't be nearly as prolific and populated as they are. There were a few too many segments about how idyllic the island was -- I get it, the place was a beautiful utopia that was clearly being set up to have something dark under the surface -- and I think the story's pacing would have been better served by trimming some of those down in the middle. I appreciated the moral complexity of the characters, though, rather than just being one-dimensional villains or sidekicks, and the protagonist's journey of self-discovery and agency was satisfying.
It was a nice change of pace for a protagonist to realize a group was in fact a cult and, instead of being horrified or running away, realizing that's what they wanted and joining. After all, if everyone condemned cults as strongly as most cult horror books would have you believe, they wouldn't be nearly as prolific and populated as they are. There were a few too many segments about how idyllic the island was -- I get it, the place was a beautiful utopia that was clearly being set up to have something dark under the surface -- and I think the story's pacing would have been better served by trimming some of those down in the middle. I appreciated the moral complexity of the characters, though, rather than just being one-dimensional villains or sidekicks, and the protagonist's journey of self-discovery and agency was satisfying.
October 29, 2025
... "play "i am not a woman, i'm a god" by Halsey" 🤭
Terrifyingly transformative and emotionally gripping, this mind-bending and existentially dreadful cosmic horror will warp your senses of reality and leave your mind twisted with gut-wrenching moments of self-empowerment and absolute fear. I thoroughly enjoyed Steel's beautiful writing and stylistic choices for organizing the chapters. The kaleidoscope of feels and morale dilemmas that I had while reading made for a very interesting adventure, but the underlying messages of the story really hit home for me!
A big thank you to Page Street Horror & NetGalley for giving this ghoul ARC access in exchange for my honest thoughts on the book!
Terrifyingly transformative and emotionally gripping, this mind-bending and existentially dreadful cosmic horror will warp your senses of reality and leave your mind twisted with gut-wrenching moments of self-empowerment and absolute fear. I thoroughly enjoyed Steel's beautiful writing and stylistic choices for organizing the chapters. The kaleidoscope of feels and morale dilemmas that I had while reading made for a very interesting adventure, but the underlying messages of the story really hit home for me!
A big thank you to Page Street Horror & NetGalley for giving this ghoul ARC access in exchange for my honest thoughts on the book!
December 26, 2025
4.5 rounded up
This gripped me in a way difficult to describe, but I felt sucked in - and for a lack of a better word - entranced. Having grown up in a cult, a lot of its themes heavily resonated with me. Jonah's character especially rang quite true, reminding me of the "cult leader" figure I had the displeasure of knowing. Preaching all you do is for family, but at the end of the day it being all about ego; family being an extension of said ego, which is not love - it's ownership.
Aiofe, a very flawed and at times grating protagonist, was someone I saw myself reflected in over and over again.
This book is not horror, it is horrifying at times though.
I especially enjoyed the lyrical writing style, though I know it will not be to everyone's taste.
This gripped me in a way difficult to describe, but I felt sucked in - and for a lack of a better word - entranced. Having grown up in a cult, a lot of its themes heavily resonated with me. Jonah's character especially rang quite true, reminding me of the "cult leader" figure I had the displeasure of knowing. Preaching all you do is for family, but at the end of the day it being all about ego; family being an extension of said ego, which is not love - it's ownership.
Aiofe, a very flawed and at times grating protagonist, was someone I saw myself reflected in over and over again.
This book is not horror, it is horrifying at times though.
I especially enjoyed the lyrical writing style, though I know it will not be to everyone's taste.
August 19, 2025
First culty book I’ve read in a while, and it made ME debate joining this cult as a reader for a hot minute. Aoife is newly single, and she is using that pain and restlessness to go to an island that she saw a former coworker talk about on a postcard. Once there, she is integrated into a community that seems to be built on happiness— or so she thinks.
November 5, 2025
Why the FUCK was this so long 🫠
I really enjoyed the story but the pacing was so uneven. I also *lowkey* guessed the ending correctly hahaha.
This was a trip though. If you love female rage/cults, this would be the book for you. Just keep in mind that Steel's prose takes some getting use to and it's not a fast-paced book. 3.25☆ but rounded down.
I really enjoyed the story but the pacing was so uneven. I also *lowkey* guessed the ending correctly hahaha.
This was a trip though. If you love female rage/cults, this would be the book for you. Just keep in mind that Steel's prose takes some getting use to and it's not a fast-paced book. 3.25☆ but rounded down.
October 22, 2025
Though I read this in three sittings, the book completely deflated for me after Part 1. The mystery in the beginning was the most compelling part, and then the conflict faded and everything became a bit perfect—and only by circumstance. The pieces didn’t really click for me, and I found myself frustrated with the motivations, destruction of character, and vague language that plagued Part 3. What started as a really strong mystery/thriller had an unfortunate heel turn, which is a shame because all the ingredients are there!
Perhaps you’ll enjoy it though!
Perhaps you’ll enjoy it though!
November 21, 2025
gurl wut. The last 100 pages were…interesting. Do I really understand what ended up happening or what the other is trying to say? No not really! The creepy cult aspect was fun but then we were suddenly in a time loop and I was confused. Idk what to even say about this.
October 16, 2025
First half of the book I kept wondering how a weird book about a cult could be so boring, and then it took a sharp turn into weird town and ended even weirded. Not sure how to feel about it, maybe this one was too weird for me.
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