What do you think?
Rate this book
The Works of Vermin
He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.
One of BookPage's Most Anticipated SFF & Horror Selections!
Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.
In this complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he'll take on any job, no matter how vile.
As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny creatures that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is a centipede the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.
Guy doesn't have a choice.
“I will follow this writer anywhere.” —Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
One of BookPage's Most Anticipated SFF & Horror Selections!
Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, a metropolis carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.
In this complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he'll take on any job, no matter how vile.
As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny creatures that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is a centipede the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.
Guy doesn't have a choice.
“I will follow this writer anywhere.” —Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Gone Girl
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
425 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 14, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 901 reviews
September 4, 2025
For some reason I was convinced that this is a horror novel prominently featuring disgusting bugs, but it's actually a very intricate and often grim fantasy story that was both overwhelming and undeniably addicting to me. Hiron Ennes definitely has big brain energy, because I can't even start to imagine what it takes to create such a detailed and rich story with so much information on every page. Due to the dense writing style the reading experience was rather exhausting for me and I'm sure that it will be a dealbreaker for other readers, but I was still always reading with great interest and everything paid off in a very satisfying way in the end.
The story takes place in Tiliard, a gigantic city carved into an ancient tree and home to our main characters. Living among the roots is Guylag Moulène, a young man working the worst jobs the city has to offer to keep his sister out of debt and currently employed as an exterminator of all the vermin that crawl the tree. In the overcity there's Asteritha Vost, a talented perfumer working for one of the most powerful (and worst) men of Tiliard while she's also unfortunately very contaminated by something that's making her sicker every day. The city is undergoing massive changes as a new kind of stone-melting, art-eating centipede the size of a dragon is discovered, but that is really only the start of a long series of events. And along the way there are so many fresh ideas and interesting concepts presented that I wonder how much can actually fit inside one book of medium length. There is the gross bug stuff of course, and the entire city is weirdly opera-obsessed, and there's casual violence and political scheming at all times, and everyone and everything is just very messy. I can't confidently say that I was able to wrap my head around everything that happened in this book, but I can wholeheartedly appreciate this story anyway. It felt like a work of art to me that only really came together when I watched it from afar and in its entirety. I was reading for a while, unsuspectingly, and then I was hit with such insane reveals that the air was knocked out of my lungs. Like, I audibly gasped when everything came together in a way that I didn't expect and it made me extremely invested in the last part of the story. I will definitely read this book again in the future to see how everything was set up in the beginning.
I didn't mention art only to compliment the author, but also because art is an important component to the story itself. Many different kinds of art are highlighted and more than one is relevant to the actual plot. There's music and dance, painting and photography, perfumery and embroidery, and it was such a powerful way to develop the characters who are associated with each art. The world was so dark and violent while the characters had such tender moments and felt deep and multilayered. Some were so multilayered that it hurt my brain. The relationships between different characters were strong and various and it was a joy to read about so many complex dynamics. There are siblings who would die and kill for each other, friends bound by contamination, people in powerful positions constantly at the verge of having each other executed, and many, many messy queer lovers.
I may have had a bit of a hard time reading this book, but in the end it leaves me impressed in every possible way. It will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think it's worth checking out, alone for its uniqueness. If you are looking for a recommendation based on this book, I would send you to Metal from Heaven by August Clarke. It has a similarly dense writing style and the same ever-queer-violent-messy vibes that are also transported in The Works of Vermin. After a bit of a break I'm gonna send myself to Leech by Hiron Ennes, because I'm quite infested with their stories already (hehe) and one book is not enough for me.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
The story takes place in Tiliard, a gigantic city carved into an ancient tree and home to our main characters. Living among the roots is Guylag Moulène, a young man working the worst jobs the city has to offer to keep his sister out of debt and currently employed as an exterminator of all the vermin that crawl the tree. In the overcity there's Asteritha Vost, a talented perfumer working for one of the most powerful (and worst) men of Tiliard while she's also unfortunately very contaminated by something that's making her sicker every day. The city is undergoing massive changes as a new kind of stone-melting, art-eating centipede the size of a dragon is discovered, but that is really only the start of a long series of events. And along the way there are so many fresh ideas and interesting concepts presented that I wonder how much can actually fit inside one book of medium length. There is the gross bug stuff of course, and the entire city is weirdly opera-obsessed, and there's casual violence and political scheming at all times, and everyone and everything is just very messy. I can't confidently say that I was able to wrap my head around everything that happened in this book, but I can wholeheartedly appreciate this story anyway. It felt like a work of art to me that only really came together when I watched it from afar and in its entirety. I was reading for a while, unsuspectingly, and then I was hit with such insane reveals that the air was knocked out of my lungs. Like, I audibly gasped when everything came together in a way that I didn't expect and it made me extremely invested in the last part of the story. I will definitely read this book again in the future to see how everything was set up in the beginning.
I didn't mention art only to compliment the author, but also because art is an important component to the story itself. Many different kinds of art are highlighted and more than one is relevant to the actual plot. There's music and dance, painting and photography, perfumery and embroidery, and it was such a powerful way to develop the characters who are associated with each art. The world was so dark and violent while the characters had such tender moments and felt deep and multilayered. Some were so multilayered that it hurt my brain. The relationships between different characters were strong and various and it was a joy to read about so many complex dynamics. There are siblings who would die and kill for each other, friends bound by contamination, people in powerful positions constantly at the verge of having each other executed, and many, many messy queer lovers.
I may have had a bit of a hard time reading this book, but in the end it leaves me impressed in every possible way. It will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think it's worth checking out, alone for its uniqueness. If you are looking for a recommendation based on this book, I would send you to Metal from Heaven by August Clarke. It has a similarly dense writing style and the same ever-queer-violent-messy vibes that are also transported in The Works of Vermin. After a bit of a break I'm gonna send myself to Leech by Hiron Ennes, because I'm quite infested with their stories already (hehe) and one book is not enough for me.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
March 27, 2026
Really Good. NASTY work in here (complimentary). the premise “Humanity lives in a giant rotting stump, pathetic exterminator must slay a centipede” could run pulpy but Ennes makes you Work For It in a way I found beautiful and challenging.
I keep returning to Kurt Vonnegut’s quote about how during the Vietnam War every artist aligned in creating works that protested the US’s involvement, and how it didn’t make a lick of difference. In The Works of Vermin, fantastical artistic movements are synonymous with political regimes (their wretched neo-repressionism, our glorious revivalism) but it becomes clear that the artistic expressions of our main cast are not appreciated for their own merit as human endeavors but are subsumed by fascism, made tools by politicians for their own ends. This is one very interesting detail in a book that is packed with baroque language and an intense sense of place but it’s what drew me as the thematic heart of the novel. There is also a lot here about obsession - did you know they made toxic yaoi that reads like toxic yuri - gender, class, and BUGS
A bit of the locked tomb….vicious….the tainted cup….metal from heaven…. I nominated this for the Hugo awards!
Please note I work for Macmillan but opinions are my own. I am not involved in book production
I keep returning to Kurt Vonnegut’s quote about how during the Vietnam War every artist aligned in creating works that protested the US’s involvement, and how it didn’t make a lick of difference. In The Works of Vermin, fantastical artistic movements are synonymous with political regimes (their wretched neo-repressionism, our glorious revivalism) but it becomes clear that the artistic expressions of our main cast are not appreciated for their own merit as human endeavors but are subsumed by fascism, made tools by politicians for their own ends. This is one very interesting detail in a book that is packed with baroque language and an intense sense of place but it’s what drew me as the thematic heart of the novel. There is also a lot here about obsession - did you know they made toxic yaoi that reads like toxic yuri - gender, class, and BUGS
A bit of the locked tomb….vicious….the tainted cup….metal from heaven…. I nominated this for the Hugo awards!
Please note I work for Macmillan but opinions are my own. I am not involved in book production
September 9, 2026
Absolutely fantastic. My favorite read of the year so far, and I don’t see anything beating it. Loved the character, the world, the surprises. It’s weird and dense and it can take a moment to find your footing, but stick with it and when it all comes together, wow is it satisfying. Highly recommend the audiobook. The narrator is superb and really chews the scenery in the best way. Loved it!
October 22, 2025
Written for:
-those who went to art school
-gender’s fluid
-those who are waiting for Alecto the ninth to finally fucking come out
-general artists
-those who want a cabinet of curiosities and oddities so fucking bad actually
-general fucking freaks
-those who went to art school
-gender’s fluid
-those who are waiting for Alecto the ninth to finally fucking come out
-general artists
-those who want a cabinet of curiosities and oddities so fucking bad actually
-general fucking freaks
August 13, 2025
Heart-rending, skin-crawling decadent madness! This novel is a constantly shifting beast, a deeply developed and intricate world that continues to evolve and deepen until the very last chapter. There is no end to the world-building here, and yet it relies on familiar dystopian sci-fi enough bones (such as a vertical city where the elite literally live atop the middle class, the working poor, and the impoverished classes, constant dissent and whisperings of revolutions that precipitate an even greater ferocity of the police state, etc.,) that the reader never feels lost. Well, not entirely lost, but there are enough novel ideas wrapped up in luxurious, purple language to make you unsure if this is a neighborhood you’ve seen before, somewhat confident you know where you are but not able to make any promises. That is part of the delicious fun of this novel, it conspires against you in some ways, but it always feels like it is challenging the reader without disregarding them or looking down on them. It makes the reading experience one of perpetual movement tinged with uncertainty, which is to say an irascible excitement, the dizzying thrill of leaning over a cliff’s edge.
The writing adds to the world-building, being highly descriptive and lush, constantly burying meaning under metaphor and hiding scathing truths in gentile banalities. This world is chaotic and obsessed with art, with appearance, with performance, those are all constructive elements of how this society understands itself, and the writing reflects that. I don’t know that it would work for any given story but for this story, in this world, it is perfect. Within this chaos are genuinely heartfelt characters that feel like they’re against all odds, scrounging for scraps in a world of bejeweled dumpsters overflowing with excess. They are part and parcel of this world, weird and transgressive and emotive, overstuffed with conflicting emotions and without the means to express them all. Even the antagonists are multi-layered, seeking an aesthetic that balances their pride, lust, ambition, and regret. The primary characters and core group of ancillary characters were all wonderfully compelling. They were messy and vulnerable and conniving and wormed their way into my heart.
The actual story and plotting are a little more difficult to talk about, not perfectly effective for me throughout the story but they won me over. The writing is a close third-person that, for the most part, moves between two characters, Guy and Aster. Neither of these characters are the movers and shakers of their circle, Guy is just trying to get along while his co-workers and bosses are the ones making decisions and he is just trying to stay afloat and on the right side of an exterminator’s trap. Aster works for the second-most powerful person in the government, but she has a lifetime of servitude to pay off, and while she isn’t necessarily happy she is able to steal joy where and how she can, and celebrate the achievements in her art. Her boss, or patron, as he prefers, and others in his circle are constantly conniving and oppressing and repressing and doing all the things authoritarian regimes need to do to keep their heads on their shoulders, and she, like Guy, is just along for the ride. Because of this it almost feels like a slice-of-life novel, as we follow these characters as the world moves around them and they just try to keep up. This results in an endlessly fascinating world but one that doesn’t feel like it has a strong plot for the first 2/3 of the story. At that point things get all twisty and mind-bendy in ways that were so clearly seeded from the very beginning but are revealed wonderfully. This means the plotting does feel a little slow. If you are happy to be constantly captivated by the ever-emerging world and the beautiful language, as I was, then this won’t be a problem. When things start taking on new shapes then the whole world becomes unreliable and there is a sense of urgency, but it does take time to get there.
There are so many ideas in this novel that I don’t know where to begin. The constant exploration and prioritization of art and aesthetics, and the way violence, social control/government, and even revolution are all explored as types of artistic movements is endlessly fascinating. That is contrasted with the wild insect life, the vermin, and how the lives of our characters, impoverished or elite, mirror those of the vermin underfoot. What is the price of beauty, and how can destruction and creation, deceit and beautification, be simultaneous? What will you sacrifice for those you care for, and what will you take, by force, if necessary? When you pull at the threads of the social tapestry not even yet off the loom can you uncover a new weft and warp or will one dying artform be replaced by another, different in appearance but equally corrupt in heart? When personal identity is guarded and personal performance is celebrated, what do you have to do to really know yourself?
(Rounded from 4.5)
I want to thank the author, the publisher Tor Books, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
The writing adds to the world-building, being highly descriptive and lush, constantly burying meaning under metaphor and hiding scathing truths in gentile banalities. This world is chaotic and obsessed with art, with appearance, with performance, those are all constructive elements of how this society understands itself, and the writing reflects that. I don’t know that it would work for any given story but for this story, in this world, it is perfect. Within this chaos are genuinely heartfelt characters that feel like they’re against all odds, scrounging for scraps in a world of bejeweled dumpsters overflowing with excess. They are part and parcel of this world, weird and transgressive and emotive, overstuffed with conflicting emotions and without the means to express them all. Even the antagonists are multi-layered, seeking an aesthetic that balances their pride, lust, ambition, and regret. The primary characters and core group of ancillary characters were all wonderfully compelling. They were messy and vulnerable and conniving and wormed their way into my heart.
The actual story and plotting are a little more difficult to talk about, not perfectly effective for me throughout the story but they won me over. The writing is a close third-person that, for the most part, moves between two characters, Guy and Aster. Neither of these characters are the movers and shakers of their circle, Guy is just trying to get along while his co-workers and bosses are the ones making decisions and he is just trying to stay afloat and on the right side of an exterminator’s trap. Aster works for the second-most powerful person in the government, but she has a lifetime of servitude to pay off, and while she isn’t necessarily happy she is able to steal joy where and how she can, and celebrate the achievements in her art. Her boss, or patron, as he prefers, and others in his circle are constantly conniving and oppressing and repressing and doing all the things authoritarian regimes need to do to keep their heads on their shoulders, and she, like Guy, is just along for the ride. Because of this it almost feels like a slice-of-life novel, as we follow these characters as the world moves around them and they just try to keep up. This results in an endlessly fascinating world but one that doesn’t feel like it has a strong plot for the first 2/3 of the story. At that point things get all twisty and mind-bendy in ways that were so clearly seeded from the very beginning but are revealed wonderfully. This means the plotting does feel a little slow. If you are happy to be constantly captivated by the ever-emerging world and the beautiful language, as I was, then this won’t be a problem. When things start taking on new shapes then the whole world becomes unreliable and there is a sense of urgency, but it does take time to get there.
There are so many ideas in this novel that I don’t know where to begin. The constant exploration and prioritization of art and aesthetics, and the way violence, social control/government, and even revolution are all explored as types of artistic movements is endlessly fascinating. That is contrasted with the wild insect life, the vermin, and how the lives of our characters, impoverished or elite, mirror those of the vermin underfoot. What is the price of beauty, and how can destruction and creation, deceit and beautification, be simultaneous? What will you sacrifice for those you care for, and what will you take, by force, if necessary? When you pull at the threads of the social tapestry not even yet off the loom can you uncover a new weft and warp or will one dying artform be replaced by another, different in appearance but equally corrupt in heart? When personal identity is guarded and personal performance is celebrated, what do you have to do to really know yourself?
(Rounded from 4.5)
I want to thank the author, the publisher Tor Books, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
March 7, 2025
Call me an entry in the Borisch Manual of Catoptric Pest Species the way I want to infest Tiliard. I mean, maybe not: Tiliard sounds like a horrible place to live. It is, however, a great place to read about.
My favourite books are those that can use the nature of fantasy or speculative fiction to make the metaphorical literal, to explore thematic meaning through physical interactions, while at the same time having cool world building and rollicking plot and fun characters and nice prose. The Works of Vermin does all of those things in spades. Looking for thematic meaning? We have the metamorphosis of insects as metaphor for transitioning, and the use of the same language for describing the extermination of pests and the persecution of political enemies. Looking for a unique and entertaining setting? We have a city with a Ministry of Aesthetics, a Seamstress Laureate, and infestations of moths that eat drapery, but only drapery carved into marble. Looking for exciting plot? We have duels galore, revenge, revelations, intrigue, and too many coups to count. Looking for fun characters? We have a woman who is blind to everything except beauty, or the messiest non-romantic love/hate imaginable, or several different versions of parent/child relationships. Looking for good writing? The prose was so good, so lyrical and beautiful, so luxurious that it was almost distracting with how well it turned a phrase.
The experience of reading this book was really something. I was continuously surprised by new secrets that in hindsight I should have seen coming, satisfying reveals and gut punch moments. I feel I cannot stress enough how beautiful is the writing itself, how the prose is uncommonly good. It is casually, easily, deeply queer, and what a joy that is. It's got horror elements, certainly, but it's not just dropping in the body horror of being stung by some horrifying pest for the sake of it, it's using that as a metaphor for the way that human bodies change, or for menstruation, or for transitioning. The world has echoes of Perdido Street Station and The Tainted Cup, but it's totally its own thing, unique and novel and exciting. It's so goddamn clever, and so goddamn good. I just know I'll get so much more out of it on an inevitable reread, too.
Leech was such a breath of fresh air, a wholly original book with beautiful, crisp prose and wild, queer ideas. I don't like reading horror, generally, but Leech convinced me that I wanted read whatever Hiron Ennes writes. The Works of Vermin has confirmed that opinion for me.
My favourite books are those that can use the nature of fantasy or speculative fiction to make the metaphorical literal, to explore thematic meaning through physical interactions, while at the same time having cool world building and rollicking plot and fun characters and nice prose. The Works of Vermin does all of those things in spades. Looking for thematic meaning? We have the metamorphosis of insects as metaphor for transitioning, and the use of the same language for describing the extermination of pests and the persecution of political enemies. Looking for a unique and entertaining setting? We have a city with a Ministry of Aesthetics, a Seamstress Laureate, and infestations of moths that eat drapery, but only drapery carved into marble. Looking for exciting plot? We have duels galore, revenge, revelations, intrigue, and too many coups to count. Looking for fun characters? We have a woman who is blind to everything except beauty, or the messiest non-romantic love/hate imaginable, or several different versions of parent/child relationships. Looking for good writing? The prose was so good, so lyrical and beautiful, so luxurious that it was almost distracting with how well it turned a phrase.
The experience of reading this book was really something. I was continuously surprised by new secrets that in hindsight I should have seen coming, satisfying reveals and gut punch moments. I feel I cannot stress enough how beautiful is the writing itself, how the prose is uncommonly good. It is casually, easily, deeply queer, and what a joy that is. It's got horror elements, certainly, but it's not just dropping in the body horror of being stung by some horrifying pest for the sake of it, it's using that as a metaphor for the way that human bodies change, or for menstruation, or for transitioning. The world has echoes of Perdido Street Station and The Tainted Cup, but it's totally its own thing, unique and novel and exciting. It's so goddamn clever, and so goddamn good. I just know I'll get so much more out of it on an inevitable reread, too.
Leech was such a breath of fresh air, a wholly original book with beautiful, crisp prose and wild, queer ideas. I don't like reading horror, generally, but Leech convinced me that I wanted read whatever Hiron Ennes writes. The Works of Vermin has confirmed that opinion for me.
May 9, 2026
What an inventive, imaginative, dark, uplifting, intense, crazy-ass read. Pretty much combine every superlative you can think of, and that will still fall short of encapsulating this book. Easily one of my best reads of the year, although I do think it takes a certain kind of reader. Set the low bar at open-minded, and the high bar at having consumed psychedelic drugs – I believe I described Ennes’ previous work as ‘Jeff VanDerMeer on crack’ – This one is like if Jeff VanDerMeer followed the White Rabbit to Wonderland, and an infestation of insects from Hell was trailing behind them. It’s honestly difficult for me to conjure the words to review this novel in a succinct and sensible fashion, but I cannot recommend it enough, if you see this review, please give this one a chance!
The Works Of Vermin takes place in Tilliard, a somewhat magical civilization that exists within the gigantic, hollowed out stump of a tree. Entire societies have lived and died in the rotting, growing roots, with precious metals and noxious gassed rammed into the nooks and crannies, hellrats and centipedes as big as skyscrapers, biological perfumes that trick the senses, both preventing or encouraging would-be assassins(depending on the scent), a brutal caste system that spans deep underground, and a pronounced love for theater in the arts; Tilliard defies description, equal parts wonderful and terrible.
We primarily follow two characters, on decidedly different sides of the coin. Guy exists as an exterminator, a title that carries much more weight as it does in our world, despite still being under-appreciated grunt work. Exterminators in this realm are responsible for dealing with larger-than-life chimera and all kinds of disgusting insects. Guy works to both clear his incalculable debt, and to house and protect his little sister, who is just young enough to be sheltered from the ugliness of reality. Despite his grim situation, Guy is a lover of the arts, and has hundreds of plays committed to memory. The other protagonist is Aster, a talented perfumer for the Grand Marshal(Think Lord Commander of the Kingsguard from GoT). Her job is to prepare him with protective scents, scents to place upon himself to impart diplomacy, level-headedness, to confuse and befuddle his detractors, etc. Aster is uniquely talented at her job.
As we learn more about these characters, and the unbelievably expansive world that they survive in, we learn about an interloper from an entirely different land – Mallory. He bears no scent at all, wears odd clothes, and seems to have precious little knowledge of the machinations of Tilliard. As things progress towards a crescendo, several other characters and settings are introduced, including a toxic river, and the disillusioned, would-be wife of Tilliard’s emperor.
This was a dense read, and one that both took me a while and commanded my full attention. That being said, it was worth every second, and I hated to finish it, if only because I didn’t want it to end! If I had one small nitpick, it would be that the coming together of the timelines and character arcs was kinda confusing, although it does start to make more sense as things are fleshed out. Overall an incredible read, and my favorite of 2026 so far! 5/5
The Works Of Vermin takes place in Tilliard, a somewhat magical civilization that exists within the gigantic, hollowed out stump of a tree. Entire societies have lived and died in the rotting, growing roots, with precious metals and noxious gassed rammed into the nooks and crannies, hellrats and centipedes as big as skyscrapers, biological perfumes that trick the senses, both preventing or encouraging would-be assassins(depending on the scent), a brutal caste system that spans deep underground, and a pronounced love for theater in the arts; Tilliard defies description, equal parts wonderful and terrible.
We primarily follow two characters, on decidedly different sides of the coin. Guy exists as an exterminator, a title that carries much more weight as it does in our world, despite still being under-appreciated grunt work. Exterminators in this realm are responsible for dealing with larger-than-life chimera and all kinds of disgusting insects. Guy works to both clear his incalculable debt, and to house and protect his little sister, who is just young enough to be sheltered from the ugliness of reality. Despite his grim situation, Guy is a lover of the arts, and has hundreds of plays committed to memory. The other protagonist is Aster, a talented perfumer for the Grand Marshal(Think Lord Commander of the Kingsguard from GoT). Her job is to prepare him with protective scents, scents to place upon himself to impart diplomacy, level-headedness, to confuse and befuddle his detractors, etc. Aster is uniquely talented at her job.
As we learn more about these characters, and the unbelievably expansive world that they survive in, we learn about an interloper from an entirely different land – Mallory. He bears no scent at all, wears odd clothes, and seems to have precious little knowledge of the machinations of Tilliard. As things progress towards a crescendo, several other characters and settings are introduced, including a toxic river, and the disillusioned, would-be wife of Tilliard’s emperor.
This was a dense read, and one that both took me a while and commanded my full attention. That being said, it was worth every second, and I hated to finish it, if only because I didn’t want it to end! If I had one small nitpick, it would be that the coming together of the timelines and character arcs was kinda confusing, although it does start to make more sense as things are fleshed out. Overall an incredible read, and my favorite of 2026 so far! 5/5
September 6, 2025
I love weird fiction, especially weird SFF. So I'm sad to say that this didn't hit the spot.
I think my problem with this novel was that I didn't understand if this was supposed to be a satire or a serious novel about wealth inequity. The tone kept going back and forth on whether the novel wanted its reader to take it seriously (with subplots on child labor, indentured servitude, debt, etc.), or view this as a whimsical, almost nonsensical, story a la Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
I did like the huge twist near the end. The worldbuilding and characterization were top notch too. I haven't read too many biopunk novels, but this one excelled in its worldbuilding. You can't go wrong with a population that's one with nature and uses and abuses all sorts of insects like how we treat wild animals and farm animals. The world was definitely fascinating.
While I could connect with the MMCs, Guy and Mallory, literally every secondary and minor character read like caricatures out of a Shakespeare play. Was I supposed to take them seriously or brush them off as either satirical or nonsensical props? It's been a month since I read this arc and I'm still not sure.
Anyway, this is definitely a "it's not you, it's me" type of read. I wouldn't not recommend this, but I won't gush about it on socials or anything.
Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this arc.
I think my problem with this novel was that I didn't understand if this was supposed to be a satire or a serious novel about wealth inequity. The tone kept going back and forth on whether the novel wanted its reader to take it seriously (with subplots on child labor, indentured servitude, debt, etc.), or view this as a whimsical, almost nonsensical, story a la Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
I did like the huge twist near the end. The worldbuilding and characterization were top notch too. I haven't read too many biopunk novels, but this one excelled in its worldbuilding. You can't go wrong with a population that's one with nature and uses and abuses all sorts of insects like how we treat wild animals and farm animals. The world was definitely fascinating.
While I could connect with the MMCs, Guy and Mallory, literally every secondary and minor character read like caricatures out of a Shakespeare play. Was I supposed to take them seriously or brush them off as either satirical or nonsensical props? It's been a month since I read this arc and I'm still not sure.
Anyway, this is definitely a "it's not you, it's me" type of read. I wouldn't not recommend this, but I won't gush about it on socials or anything.
Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for this arc.
June 26, 2026
y’all that timeline reveal as it started dawning on me … that shit was crazy lol
October 10, 2025
‘Same choice we all have, my dear. Same as every creature. Domestication, or extermination.’
I truly wish I loved this book more than I did, but to be honest I struggled through understanding most of this novel. The writing was very well done, but for the life of me I could not get a grasp on worldbuilding or the plot. Things would happen but everything felt so disconnected that nothing had any substance to it, so for the majority of this novel it felt more like I was being picked up and taken on the ride with no understanding of what would happen next, or why.
I think my biggest issue with this book was the two separate storylines going on - one that matches the book description, and one that does not at all. And neither are given any background to understand what is going on, and so even now I am unsure how the influence of art matters in this story nor how exactly the perfume that affects everything even works - or why. Throughout this novel we are given small glimpses into a bigger world, but - while nothing too hard to understand was being said, exactly - I spent most of this book in confusion.
There are multiple points of view that keep shifting between one and another and for the most part many of them are pointless. There’s bits and pieces to this story that are unnecessary and don’t add anything to it (Guy’s one specific side-job comes to mind), and other pieces that are included that just ruined characters for me. (I know Dawn has a twist near the end, but I found his sudden shift of being understanding of Guy’s boundaries with sex to pushing for something he is ‘owed’ a bit of a disappointment - I think it the twist would have been more impactful without the dismantling of Dawn’s softer character before the change).
I’ll be entirely honest - I did look at reviews for this book while I was struggling to read and kept seeing how well-received it was by seemingly everyone else. And I saw that there was some big reveal at about the 80% mark that completely changed how everyone read this book and so, against my better judgement, I pushed through to completion. If I didn’t have the audiobook and a long drive I may have honestly not bothered.
I’ll admit that there is some twist within the last 20% of the book and with this the plot does take off and quicken, but as this was a twist I had thought since the original fire at the opera house I was left less than impressed. I didn’t think this twist and sudden change in plot and tone was worth the majority of time this book meandered without a goal and somehow added more and more worldbuilding that made everything make even less sense.
If you’ve gotten at least 30% into this book and you’re not hooked on it, I’m here to tell you that you won’t really be missing anything by quitting. You can probably tell what the twist is, and in my opinion the payoff isn’t worth the punishment of muddling through the rest of the book. Normally I’d try to encourage everyone to check out something if they’re unsure, but with how overwhelmingly positive this book’s reviews are I think I should do the opposite. If you’re wondering whether you should stick through to the end or quit, that’s your sign to quit. If, however, you find this world fascinating and (somehow) understand what’s going on or why - then stay until the end and you’ll be rewarded.
The audiobook narrator was extremely well done and without it I would have never finished this book even with the promise of a twist at the end that made this story worth it. The voiceacting was phenomenal and even when I wasn’t enjoying the novel itself I was enjoying how it was being told to me. I do think this book is done very well through audiobook once you get the hang of the constant changing of POV.
‘There’s only one good man in Tiliard, and he’s been dead for years.’
Thank you to Netgalley and Tor/Macmillan Audio for providing me this e-ARC/ALC.
I truly wish I loved this book more than I did, but to be honest I struggled through understanding most of this novel. The writing was very well done, but for the life of me I could not get a grasp on worldbuilding or the plot. Things would happen but everything felt so disconnected that nothing had any substance to it, so for the majority of this novel it felt more like I was being picked up and taken on the ride with no understanding of what would happen next, or why.
I think my biggest issue with this book was the two separate storylines going on - one that matches the book description, and one that does not at all. And neither are given any background to understand what is going on, and so even now I am unsure how the influence of art matters in this story nor how exactly the perfume that affects everything even works - or why. Throughout this novel we are given small glimpses into a bigger world, but - while nothing too hard to understand was being said, exactly - I spent most of this book in confusion.
There are multiple points of view that keep shifting between one and another and for the most part many of them are pointless. There’s bits and pieces to this story that are unnecessary and don’t add anything to it (Guy’s one specific side-job comes to mind), and other pieces that are included that just ruined characters for me. (I know Dawn has a twist near the end, but I found his sudden shift of being understanding of Guy’s boundaries with sex to pushing for something he is ‘owed’ a bit of a disappointment - I think it the twist would have been more impactful without the dismantling of Dawn’s softer character before the change).
I’ll be entirely honest - I did look at reviews for this book while I was struggling to read and kept seeing how well-received it was by seemingly everyone else. And I saw that there was some big reveal at about the 80% mark that completely changed how everyone read this book and so, against my better judgement, I pushed through to completion. If I didn’t have the audiobook and a long drive I may have honestly not bothered.
I’ll admit that there is some twist within the last 20% of the book and with this the plot does take off and quicken, but as this was a twist I had thought since the original fire at the opera house I was left less than impressed. I didn’t think this twist and sudden change in plot and tone was worth the majority of time this book meandered without a goal and somehow added more and more worldbuilding that made everything make even less sense.
If you’ve gotten at least 30% into this book and you’re not hooked on it, I’m here to tell you that you won’t really be missing anything by quitting. You can probably tell what the twist is, and in my opinion the payoff isn’t worth the punishment of muddling through the rest of the book. Normally I’d try to encourage everyone to check out something if they’re unsure, but with how overwhelmingly positive this book’s reviews are I think I should do the opposite. If you’re wondering whether you should stick through to the end or quit, that’s your sign to quit. If, however, you find this world fascinating and (somehow) understand what’s going on or why - then stay until the end and you’ll be rewarded.
The audiobook narrator was extremely well done and without it I would have never finished this book even with the promise of a twist at the end that made this story worth it. The voiceacting was phenomenal and even when I wasn’t enjoying the novel itself I was enjoying how it was being told to me. I do think this book is done very well through audiobook once you get the hang of the constant changing of POV.
‘There’s only one good man in Tiliard, and he’s been dead for years.’
Thank you to Netgalley and Tor/Macmillan Audio for providing me this e-ARC/ALC.
October 9, 2025
This had some of the most visceral writing I have read.
Is this horror, fantasy, sci fi, mystery, a story about familiar love?
Guy is an exterminator living in the under city desperately trying to pay off his impossible debts, intent on keeping his younger sister free. Only thing is, the bugs are crazy big, dangerous, and full of deadly toxins.
Aster is the perfumer for the Chancellor in the overcity, able to imbue loyalty, fear, resilience with the right scents.
First of all, I am a sucker for sibling relations. Guy’s love and fear for his sister is admirable, frustrating, and touching all at once.
Guy has a flair for the theatre and the descriptions from his pov will transport you.
Aster wasn’t as strong a character in comparison, but I was intrigued by the political turmoil around her as well as the intricacies of her work. Very imaginative. Imagine perfume able to change your persona, mood, influence others, protect you…
This world is shocking and grim and gory and horny and beautiful.
It reminded me of Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.
“Revenge is such a sad attempt to stay relevant.”
I did guess the big reveal, but I adored how it played out even if I thought the climax was slightly rushed and easy.
An easy YES recommendation for your spooky tbr.
Arc gifted by Pan MacMillan.
Bookstagram
Tiktok
Is this horror, fantasy, sci fi, mystery, a story about familiar love?
Guy is an exterminator living in the under city desperately trying to pay off his impossible debts, intent on keeping his younger sister free. Only thing is, the bugs are crazy big, dangerous, and full of deadly toxins.
Aster is the perfumer for the Chancellor in the overcity, able to imbue loyalty, fear, resilience with the right scents.
First of all, I am a sucker for sibling relations. Guy’s love and fear for his sister is admirable, frustrating, and touching all at once.
Guy has a flair for the theatre and the descriptions from his pov will transport you.
Aster wasn’t as strong a character in comparison, but I was intrigued by the political turmoil around her as well as the intricacies of her work. Very imaginative. Imagine perfume able to change your persona, mood, influence others, protect you…
This world is shocking and grim and gory and horny and beautiful.
It reminded me of Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.
“Revenge is such a sad attempt to stay relevant.”
I did guess the big reveal, but I adored how it played out even if I thought the climax was slightly rushed and easy.
An easy YES recommendation for your spooky tbr.
Arc gifted by Pan MacMillan.
Bookstagram
Tiktok
February 21, 2026
Absolutely fucking brilliant in the best tradition of New Weird. It's everything I wished
The Etched City
would be, and wasn't. Need to see if I'm still capable of writing a full length review, this deserves it.
January 15, 2026
I picked this up off the strength of a friend’s review/recommendation (described as, to paraphrase, “like someone wrote a book to pander to you specifically,”). As it transpires, that was an accurate description – this is the sort of book that makes me want to go downgrade every other Goodreads rating I made last year to emphasize how much more this deserves the five stars. Not necessarily in an objective sense (almost certainly not, really), but in terms of my experience this is the best and most affecting book I’ve read in ages. It is also an incredibly weird (and Weird) one, and potentially offputting in a whole myriad of ways, but then that’s part of the charm.
Set in the delirious fever-dream of a city known as Tiliard – carved into the stump and roots of an ancient tree straddling the valley of a deadly river, where water burns and wood boils, and lilies of bone flower from the chests of dead soloists for the edification of cheering opera-goers – Works follows two seemingly disjoint plotlines with two different protagonists.
Guy is a longsuffering and hideously overworked pest exterminator (and, as a sideline, sex worker) struggling to keep his younger sister from being trapped in the same mire of poverty and debt as him even while he, his partner Dawn and their captain Three are thrown into one hideous, maddening and life-threatening infestation after another. Life grows both more hopeful and far more terrible for them all when they stumble into being the most qualified experts in the city on a gargantuan new worm whose mutagenic toxins might have the potential to transform the city entirely.
Aster lives far above him, the contracted personal perfumer (and, in a vague and unstated sense, surrogate daughter) to the city’s murderously precise Grand Marshal. Infected since childhood with an ailment which will someday see her coughing up the squirming and alien thing that was once her lungs, she’s a savant at her craft. Her enchanting, character-enhancing and reality-warping perfumes are beyond even the city’s Perfumer Laureate’s best, and make her contract a true prize. Despite (or because) of her august position, she finds herself ever-more drawn into the orbit of a strange country gentleman with a mysterious past and a grudge to settle, and of the radical new artistic movement which threatens to unseat Revivallism 15-year reign.
The plots do intersect and affect each other, but just how they do only becomes clear as the book reaches its third act. It is a very well-done reveal – the kind of dawning realization that instantly recontextualizes a hundred little niggling things you’ve encountered so far when you finally connect the dots. That the big finish and denouement then actually sticks the landing and gives a satisfying solution to the whole anarchic mess is the sort of thing that almost makes you think writing a book must be easy.
Genre and Inspiration
50 pages in, I described the book so far as ‘Perdido Street Station if Mieville could write women’. Which is possibly unfair to Mieville’s other works, but in terms of aesthetics the comparison does stand. This is a work that wears its antecedents on its sleeve, and Bas-Lag, Ambergris and the whole New Weird menagerie is by far the most obvious strand among them. The whole nightmarish, surreal, bioindustrial revolution and literalized metaphors of exploitation aesthetic is very well-done here, as are all the poetically horrifying monsters hiding in the city’s ducts and gutters. I have a few friends online who are huge fans of the roleplaying game Spire, and (though I believe this to be pretty much entirely a case of convergent evolution) the overlap in tone and aesthetic is strikingly massive.
The book’s prose is a persistent (if occasionally nightmarish) delight, taking full advantage of the fever-dream setting in its descriptions and imagery. The various horrifying vermin, the effects of Aster’s perfumes, Revivalism and Extemporism and their various expressions, even the structure of the city itself and the river it sits over; all, at points, are described in a way that’s either beautiful or sublime.
Guy’s plotline especially also has a lot of an entirely different flavour of fantasy running through it. Admittedly a flavour I only know through pastiche and parody, so this is actually the closest I have ever seen to ‘rat catchers fighting horrifying monsters for terrible wages in the sewers’ being played more for horror than comedy. The whole pitch-black gallows humour and affectionately abusive esprit de corps both feel appropriate and manage to sell the sense of a (profoundly dysfunctional, and not really in the quirky cute way) found family to me much better than a lot of stories that set out with the explicit goal of doing so.
Outside of the genre, Tiliard seemed very reminiscent to me of mid 19th century Paris, in the late Restoration or the July Monarchy. Or better to say, it was reminiscent of the decadent, tottering, coup- and revolution-prone caricature of such I’ve gathered from memories and adaptations of Hugo and Dumas. Mallory in particular has more than a passing family resemblance to the Count of Monte Cristo. That so much of the book is following austere, restrained pseudo-Enlightenment aesthetics being superseded by something more indulgent, extravagant and sentimental doesn’t hurt either (nor does the absolutely key monster/plot point that is a massive writhing reference to Poe’s The Conqueror Worm).
Art and Love
The connection between artistic and political movements, and the way that beauty and artistic achievement are intensely political things to truly try to describe or aspire towards, is core to the book’s plot in a dozen different ways. This is mostly just a rich source of striking imagery and fun wordplay, but the fact that the reality-warping venom which a revolution is built upon comes from letting vermin from the gutters decompose and digest the great art of generations past is not the most subtle thing in the world. Neither, for that matter, are the era’s great soloists and actors dying for the edification of their audience and becoming literal ornaments for their rich and powerful patrons.
Art aside though, the real theme of the book is how the power of love is a radical, transformative, world-conquering force. Almost uniquely, this is not at all a story where that’s a universally good thing. The book is full to bursting with relationships between people who love (or loved) but do not understand each other, and all the horrors and tragedies that result. Guy’s surrogate-parental relationship with Tyro is almost nothing but this for long stretches of the book, for all the best intentions and genuine benevolence in the world. Then there are plenty of others (especially around the Grand Marshal Revenant) that are basically arguments that with a sufficiently wide power imbalance even the most genuine and passionate love quickly becomes toxic by default.
It is to the book’s immense credit that it manages to be so thematically opinionated without ever once feeling didactic or like it’s lecturing its audience. A large part of it is being so immersed in the political intrigues of a world that’s resolutely alien and without any easy 1:1 analogues to anything the expected reader will be familiar with, of course (well, beyond an antipathy for imperialist wars to secure luxuries for the ruling elite). More importantly, everyone is allowed to be utter messes full of flaws, virtues and contradictions without ever suffering under the burden of just becoming The One Who Is Right, which I find vital for keeping any sort of thematically charged conflict from trending towards a morality tale.
In Summary
Sublime, lovely, clever, gruesome, tragic, deeply affecting book. Go read it.
Set in the delirious fever-dream of a city known as Tiliard – carved into the stump and roots of an ancient tree straddling the valley of a deadly river, where water burns and wood boils, and lilies of bone flower from the chests of dead soloists for the edification of cheering opera-goers – Works follows two seemingly disjoint plotlines with two different protagonists.
Guy is a longsuffering and hideously overworked pest exterminator (and, as a sideline, sex worker) struggling to keep his younger sister from being trapped in the same mire of poverty and debt as him even while he, his partner Dawn and their captain Three are thrown into one hideous, maddening and life-threatening infestation after another. Life grows both more hopeful and far more terrible for them all when they stumble into being the most qualified experts in the city on a gargantuan new worm whose mutagenic toxins might have the potential to transform the city entirely.
Aster lives far above him, the contracted personal perfumer (and, in a vague and unstated sense, surrogate daughter) to the city’s murderously precise Grand Marshal. Infected since childhood with an ailment which will someday see her coughing up the squirming and alien thing that was once her lungs, she’s a savant at her craft. Her enchanting, character-enhancing and reality-warping perfumes are beyond even the city’s Perfumer Laureate’s best, and make her contract a true prize. Despite (or because) of her august position, she finds herself ever-more drawn into the orbit of a strange country gentleman with a mysterious past and a grudge to settle, and of the radical new artistic movement which threatens to unseat Revivallism 15-year reign.
The plots do intersect and affect each other, but just how they do only becomes clear as the book reaches its third act. It is a very well-done reveal – the kind of dawning realization that instantly recontextualizes a hundred little niggling things you’ve encountered so far when you finally connect the dots. That the big finish and denouement then actually sticks the landing and gives a satisfying solution to the whole anarchic mess is the sort of thing that almost makes you think writing a book must be easy.
Genre and Inspiration
50 pages in, I described the book so far as ‘Perdido Street Station if Mieville could write women’. Which is possibly unfair to Mieville’s other works, but in terms of aesthetics the comparison does stand. This is a work that wears its antecedents on its sleeve, and Bas-Lag, Ambergris and the whole New Weird menagerie is by far the most obvious strand among them. The whole nightmarish, surreal, bioindustrial revolution and literalized metaphors of exploitation aesthetic is very well-done here, as are all the poetically horrifying monsters hiding in the city’s ducts and gutters. I have a few friends online who are huge fans of the roleplaying game Spire, and (though I believe this to be pretty much entirely a case of convergent evolution) the overlap in tone and aesthetic is strikingly massive.
The book’s prose is a persistent (if occasionally nightmarish) delight, taking full advantage of the fever-dream setting in its descriptions and imagery. The various horrifying vermin, the effects of Aster’s perfumes, Revivalism and Extemporism and their various expressions, even the structure of the city itself and the river it sits over; all, at points, are described in a way that’s either beautiful or sublime.
Guy’s plotline especially also has a lot of an entirely different flavour of fantasy running through it. Admittedly a flavour I only know through pastiche and parody, so this is actually the closest I have ever seen to ‘rat catchers fighting horrifying monsters for terrible wages in the sewers’ being played more for horror than comedy. The whole pitch-black gallows humour and affectionately abusive esprit de corps both feel appropriate and manage to sell the sense of a (profoundly dysfunctional, and not really in the quirky cute way) found family to me much better than a lot of stories that set out with the explicit goal of doing so.
Outside of the genre, Tiliard seemed very reminiscent to me of mid 19th century Paris, in the late Restoration or the July Monarchy. Or better to say, it was reminiscent of the decadent, tottering, coup- and revolution-prone caricature of such I’ve gathered from memories and adaptations of Hugo and Dumas. Mallory in particular has more than a passing family resemblance to the Count of Monte Cristo. That so much of the book is following austere, restrained pseudo-Enlightenment aesthetics being superseded by something more indulgent, extravagant and sentimental doesn’t hurt either (nor does the absolutely key monster/plot point that is a massive writhing reference to Poe’s The Conqueror Worm).
Art and Love
The connection between artistic and political movements, and the way that beauty and artistic achievement are intensely political things to truly try to describe or aspire towards, is core to the book’s plot in a dozen different ways. This is mostly just a rich source of striking imagery and fun wordplay, but the fact that the reality-warping venom which a revolution is built upon comes from letting vermin from the gutters decompose and digest the great art of generations past is not the most subtle thing in the world. Neither, for that matter, are the era’s great soloists and actors dying for the edification of their audience and becoming literal ornaments for their rich and powerful patrons.
Art aside though, the real theme of the book is how the power of love is a radical, transformative, world-conquering force. Almost uniquely, this is not at all a story where that’s a universally good thing. The book is full to bursting with relationships between people who love (or loved) but do not understand each other, and all the horrors and tragedies that result. Guy’s surrogate-parental relationship with Tyro is almost nothing but this for long stretches of the book, for all the best intentions and genuine benevolence in the world. Then there are plenty of others (especially around the Grand Marshal Revenant) that are basically arguments that with a sufficiently wide power imbalance even the most genuine and passionate love quickly becomes toxic by default.
It is to the book’s immense credit that it manages to be so thematically opinionated without ever once feeling didactic or like it’s lecturing its audience. A large part of it is being so immersed in the political intrigues of a world that’s resolutely alien and without any easy 1:1 analogues to anything the expected reader will be familiar with, of course (well, beyond an antipathy for imperialist wars to secure luxuries for the ruling elite). More importantly, everyone is allowed to be utter messes full of flaws, virtues and contradictions without ever suffering under the burden of just becoming The One Who Is Right, which I find vital for keeping any sort of thematically charged conflict from trending towards a morality tale.
In Summary
Sublime, lovely, clever, gruesome, tragic, deeply affecting book. Go read it.
October 12, 2025
I loved Leech, but this one didn't connect with me as much. Perhaps because Leech was purposefully disorienting whereas The Works of Vermin had more explicit world-building? Perhaps because I didn't jive with the characters as much? Hard to say, but I'll still try the next book from the author because their writing is so weird and interesting
Read
October 17, 2025A strange and labyrinthine horror novel with intricate world-building and a central sibling relationship. This one takes its time and doesn't make it easy to understand the world or what exactly is happening. You have to be patient and let it unfold, dropping bits of information along the way.
Set in a dystopian world, there is a city in a giant tree stump. Above the wealthy play while below workers seek to exterminate giant bugs or harvest them for toxins used in perfumes that do more than just create a scent. The main character is an exterminator by day, and as a side gig allows himself to be used as a plaything by the wealthy. His only goal is to protect his sister from becoming endlessly indebted like himself, but it's a difficult world and she has her own ideas...
This author always has the most unique and strange ideas. While I didn't connect with this in the same way I did Leech, I appreciate what the story is doing. Note that there is plenty of body horror to be had and the twists are interesting. The audio narration is great and makes it feel like a Shakespearean drama. I received an audio review copy via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.
Set in a dystopian world, there is a city in a giant tree stump. Above the wealthy play while below workers seek to exterminate giant bugs or harvest them for toxins used in perfumes that do more than just create a scent. The main character is an exterminator by day, and as a side gig allows himself to be used as a plaything by the wealthy. His only goal is to protect his sister from becoming endlessly indebted like himself, but it's a difficult world and she has her own ideas...
This author always has the most unique and strange ideas. While I didn't connect with this in the same way I did Leech, I appreciate what the story is doing. Note that there is plenty of body horror to be had and the twists are interesting. The audio narration is great and makes it feel like a Shakespearean drama. I received an audio review copy via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.
Want to Read
December 19, 2024No synopsis yet, but Peter Watts says
"The Works of Vermin isn't for everyone; those in thrall to YA might run screaming from the room, and good riddance. But if you're a fan of Mervin Peake, Gene Wolfe, China Miéville – mammal, have I got a book for you. A book to be not so much read as wallowed and rolled around in".
It’s giving part edge-lord, part actual originality.
Colour me intrigued...
"The Works of Vermin isn't for everyone; those in thrall to YA might run screaming from the room, and good riddance. But if you're a fan of Mervin Peake, Gene Wolfe, China Miéville – mammal, have I got a book for you. A book to be not so much read as wallowed and rolled around in".
It’s giving part edge-lord, part actual originality.
Colour me intrigued...
April 18, 2026
https://booksandmorebooks.neocities.o...
Phantom of the Opera meets Perdido Street Station. Read for a story about rot and grime and art and corruption, about how some things never change and other things never stop changing. Be prepared to run into terms from high school biology. (Remeber xylem and phloem? It comes up a lot.)
I didn't love the third-person present tense, but I can acknowledge that it has a purpose.
I did love the characters. Some are tragic. Some are heroic. Some are just confusing. All of them were psychologically compelling to me, especially Guy. I think this book is slyly really good at exploring his fraught relationship to sex and intimacy. He's a magical exterminator (which is essentially monster hunting in an urban environment) who does sex work on the side, and this affects so many of his various relationships with friends, family, lovers, bosses.
There's a second plotline involving a magical perfumist named Aster. She's also an awesome character as she struggles with questions around how complacent she should be in a system that resembles fascism. You have the people with power, the people who are exploited, and a media apparatus (the Opera, along with other artists and propagandists) that controls narratives. Think: 1940s Paris, but also with plants and fungus. It's really creative and emotional and thrilling and weird (in every sense of the word -- definitely expect some new weird tropes). The type of book that leaves a really strong impression. I don't think there's a single scene I could possibly forget. The imagery is just so vivid and unique. Highly recommend to fans of fantasy and new weird.
Phantom of the Opera meets Perdido Street Station. Read for a story about rot and grime and art and corruption, about how some things never change and other things never stop changing. Be prepared to run into terms from high school biology. (Remeber xylem and phloem? It comes up a lot.)
I didn't love the third-person present tense, but I can acknowledge that it has a purpose.
I did love the characters. Some are tragic. Some are heroic. Some are just confusing. All of them were psychologically compelling to me, especially Guy. I think this book is slyly really good at exploring his fraught relationship to sex and intimacy. He's a magical exterminator (which is essentially monster hunting in an urban environment) who does sex work on the side, and this affects so many of his various relationships with friends, family, lovers, bosses.
There's a second plotline involving a magical perfumist named Aster. She's also an awesome character as she struggles with questions around how complacent she should be in a system that resembles fascism. You have the people with power, the people who are exploited, and a media apparatus (the Opera, along with other artists and propagandists) that controls narratives. Think: 1940s Paris, but also with plants and fungus. It's really creative and emotional and thrilling and weird (in every sense of the word -- definitely expect some new weird tropes). The type of book that leaves a really strong impression. I don't think there's a single scene I could possibly forget. The imagery is just so vivid and unique. Highly recommend to fans of fantasy and new weird.
October 6, 2025
Exquisite, flawless, toxic perfection!
rtc!
REVIEW
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
Highlights
~rococo bugpunk (with actual punk!)
~opera as a bloodsport
~political movements as art
~prose to get drunk on
~queer as in rainbow
~queer as in strange
~so good I read it twice
I think it says all that needs saying that when I first reached 70% of this book, I couldn’t handle it being nearly over…so I went back to the beginning and started it again.
I suspect a third read is in my near future.
If you read Ennes’ debut Leech, then I don’t need to sell you on this author because you already know they’re a genius. But I will say that Works of Vermin is incandescently and extravagantly weirder than Leech was – to the point where, having now read both, I’m now convinced Leech was Ennes toning themself down in order to test the (silvery, burning) waters of the publishing industry, the equivalent of dipping their toes into The Market to see if it was able to handle such a writer, such a wildly warped imagination (complimentary). Because it sure feels like WoV is Ennes letting loose, going no-holds-barred baroque, gleefully cutting the safety line and dropping us into free-fall.
I loved it. Obviously.
If you haven’t read Leech, then please brace for gorgeous wtfuckery, ecstatic prose, and genres that smear into each other to become something unnameable.
(Seriously, what are we calling this book? Horror? Dark Fantasy? Secondary-World SciFi? I could make arguments for all three and none of them would be wholly correct.)
My favourite kinds of books are often called fever-dreams, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a case where that was so justified as here. Works of Vermin feels exactly like being lost in a high fever; it is a grotesque rococo hallucination, surely impossible for a sober, lucid mind to ever dream up. It has all the infectious passion of a fever; it consumes the reader like one, like a brain-eating disease or a hallucinogen cut with something deadly. It gets into your blood; you have no antibodies for a book like this. There is no vaccine, no cure. You can only be obsessed.
As if dosed with the ecdytoxin the book revolves around, every thread of Works of Vermin mutates into something else before the final page; we open with Guy, a lowly pest exterminator who does sex work on the side to keep his feral younger sister fed and clothed; and Aster, a perfumer – which is something between an alchemist, wizard, and personal stylist, in this setting – whose lungs were badly damaged by a chemical weapon when she was a child, in the city’s last civil war. Guy and his coworkers are hunting a very, very big bug; Aster is sent to ‘acquire’ a dancer for her employer and patron, the Marshal (think head of the military under a dictator; he’s not the dictator, but he is not someone you want to fuck with). By the end, the city is on fire, and neither Guy nor Aster’s stories are anything like what you thought they’d be at the beginning.
Because the bug produces ecdytoxin, which warps (horrifyingly, exquisitely) everything it comes into contact with, organic or non-organic – and there are far too many people who see the potential in that. Because Aster goes to fetch a dancer and meets someone very strange, with even stranger embroidery. And on those two happenstance facts, our story turns.
Vermin is doing and saying so much, on so many levels, and I can’t tell if any of it was conscious and deliberate or if Ennes’ mind just works like this. (Again: extremely complimentary.) On the one hand, it feels as precise as jewelled clockwork – but on the other hand, it feels so lushly, horrifyingly organic, in the vein of ophiocordyceps unilateralis puppeting zombie ants or male angler fish dissolving themselves into the flesh of female ones. There are all sorts of little motifs and tableaus and recurring themes, glinting like gold thread amid the dark, meaty silk of the story Ennes has woven – like thumb names, and Guylag’s dragon, or even the Revivalist movement, which presents itself as bringing life back to Tilliard. But unstoppable life is just cancer, and with the way ecdytoxin mutates everything from bodies to buildings, the scathing commentary isn’t subtle.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
rtc!
REVIEW
*I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.*
Highlights
~rococo bugpunk (with actual punk!)
~opera as a bloodsport
~political movements as art
~prose to get drunk on
~queer as in rainbow
~queer as in strange
~so good I read it twice
I think it says all that needs saying that when I first reached 70% of this book, I couldn’t handle it being nearly over…so I went back to the beginning and started it again.
I suspect a third read is in my near future.
If you read Ennes’ debut Leech, then I don’t need to sell you on this author because you already know they’re a genius. But I will say that Works of Vermin is incandescently and extravagantly weirder than Leech was – to the point where, having now read both, I’m now convinced Leech was Ennes toning themself down in order to test the (silvery, burning) waters of the publishing industry, the equivalent of dipping their toes into The Market to see if it was able to handle such a writer, such a wildly warped imagination (complimentary). Because it sure feels like WoV is Ennes letting loose, going no-holds-barred baroque, gleefully cutting the safety line and dropping us into free-fall.
I loved it. Obviously.
If you haven’t read Leech, then please brace for gorgeous wtfuckery, ecstatic prose, and genres that smear into each other to become something unnameable.
(Seriously, what are we calling this book? Horror? Dark Fantasy? Secondary-World SciFi? I could make arguments for all three and none of them would be wholly correct.)
My favourite kinds of books are often called fever-dreams, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a case where that was so justified as here. Works of Vermin feels exactly like being lost in a high fever; it is a grotesque rococo hallucination, surely impossible for a sober, lucid mind to ever dream up. It has all the infectious passion of a fever; it consumes the reader like one, like a brain-eating disease or a hallucinogen cut with something deadly. It gets into your blood; you have no antibodies for a book like this. There is no vaccine, no cure. You can only be obsessed.
Heads will roll like fruit, but he knows those that fall will be the ripest, not the rotten.
As if dosed with the ecdytoxin the book revolves around, every thread of Works of Vermin mutates into something else before the final page; we open with Guy, a lowly pest exterminator who does sex work on the side to keep his feral younger sister fed and clothed; and Aster, a perfumer – which is something between an alchemist, wizard, and personal stylist, in this setting – whose lungs were badly damaged by a chemical weapon when she was a child, in the city’s last civil war. Guy and his coworkers are hunting a very, very big bug; Aster is sent to ‘acquire’ a dancer for her employer and patron, the Marshal (think head of the military under a dictator; he’s not the dictator, but he is not someone you want to fuck with). By the end, the city is on fire, and neither Guy nor Aster’s stories are anything like what you thought they’d be at the beginning.
Because the bug produces ecdytoxin, which warps (horrifyingly, exquisitely) everything it comes into contact with, organic or non-organic – and there are far too many people who see the potential in that. Because Aster goes to fetch a dancer and meets someone very strange, with even stranger embroidery. And on those two happenstance facts, our story turns.
Elspeth and Mallory play, one like a stanza of metered verse, the other like an honest, if not funny, slip of the tongue
Vermin is doing and saying so much, on so many levels, and I can’t tell if any of it was conscious and deliberate or if Ennes’ mind just works like this. (Again: extremely complimentary.) On the one hand, it feels as precise as jewelled clockwork – but on the other hand, it feels so lushly, horrifyingly organic, in the vein of ophiocordyceps unilateralis puppeting zombie ants or male angler fish dissolving themselves into the flesh of female ones. There are all sorts of little motifs and tableaus and recurring themes, glinting like gold thread amid the dark, meaty silk of the story Ennes has woven – like thumb names, and Guylag’s dragon, or even the Revivalist movement, which presents itself as bringing life back to Tilliard. But unstoppable life is just cancer, and with the way ecdytoxin mutates everything from bodies to buildings, the scathing commentary isn’t subtle.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
July 19, 2025
What an absolute gem of a book but holy shit where to start. This is a speculative cacophony of sinners who find themselves in the midst of an infestation.
This is my first book by this author, and I was privileged enough to receive a physical ARC from Tor. While I don't typically read horror adjacent fantasy I absolutely devoured this book much like the bugs covering the city of Tiliard are attempting to devour its inhabitants.
The writing is purple, purple all the way down into the depths of hell. The world is complex, ever growing and changing like the city at its focus. I truly cannot describe the experience of reading this book to you. The plot is alive, I was on the edge of my seat trying to unravel the reality of it all.
The characters are spectacular, their motivations are sticky, oozing into the pages as we dive into the layers upon layers at play here. I love a clever book, and this is so smartly written I felt like I was in a competition with the book itself to see if I could figure it all out by the end.
Absolute banger. No notes. Go read this book.
This is my first book by this author, and I was privileged enough to receive a physical ARC from Tor. While I don't typically read horror adjacent fantasy I absolutely devoured this book much like the bugs covering the city of Tiliard are attempting to devour its inhabitants.
The writing is purple, purple all the way down into the depths of hell. The world is complex, ever growing and changing like the city at its focus. I truly cannot describe the experience of reading this book to you. The plot is alive, I was on the edge of my seat trying to unravel the reality of it all.
The characters are spectacular, their motivations are sticky, oozing into the pages as we dive into the layers upon layers at play here. I love a clever book, and this is so smartly written I felt like I was in a competition with the book itself to see if I could figure it all out by the end.
Absolute banger. No notes. Go read this book.
Did Not Finish
December 10, 2025I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I ended up DNF'ing at just over 25%. I was going to try and push for 50%, but every page of this felt like a chore, with overly complicated writing that bogged down a beautifully imaginative world.
August 6, 2026
please...you’re an exterminator. why would I prove myself a rat?
yeah, SO. so. so!!!!!!!!!!!
I had quite the reading experience with this one. I started reading it in ebook format and struggled with the tone, which was pedal-to-the-metal ‘we kill people at the end of the opera’ absurdity but played bone dry and arrow straight. at one point, I wrote, “I like camp as much as the next person but I do need something to be just a touch tethered to reality”; later, “a book that makes both the locked tomb and metal from heaven look restrained is a book that maybe needed to be reigned in like 10% more. like china miéville on speed.”
a few quotes from VERY early on that help to establish what I mean, I think:
1. the undercity, where the deaths are lively and the births grim
2. a wine-runner offers a sample of his wares, uncorking a bottle of dagdrun brandy with a knife still stained in what remains of its vinter
3. he carries no luggage but three blades: an antique saber, which he uses rarely, a razor with an emerald handle, which he uses with some regularity, and an embroidery needle, which he uses constantly
4. he steps forward and announces the sentence: strangulation, accompanied by string quartet (a profound act of mercy, compared to the brass band).
5. “down south,” mallory says, “they say tiliarders race their ballerinas like dogs.” // “that’s uncharitable,” aster replies. “it’s more of a pit fight.”
so that’s the vibe. and again, in spite of the relentless absurdity, it’s just bleak as fuck, and I got 18% of the way in and decided I couldn’t do it anymore. it was just so relentlessly grim and I thought an audiobook might make it easier to swallow. like, if you’re going to be this over-the-top blood-bugs-and-sex you need to be a little more arch with it, I think, and it’s a tough needle to thread.
and it was like the audiobook narrator thought the same thing but, instead of giving me a little more arch, fucking gunned it. the audiobook is positively dripping. fascinating stuff, and I’m dying to know what ennes thinks of that choice, because the book and audiobook may as well be different texts. (to be outright critical for just a moment, in addition to voicing every adult woman like a character from an oughts reality tv show, the narrator also makes some wild pronunciation choices??? at one point he seemingly says “victorious” and puts the emphasis on the FIRST syllable????? I should have waited to return the ebook to double-check but he’s definitely NOT saying “vitreous,” I know that for certain.)
but it DOES make it easier to go down, and after taking the requisite amount of time to get used to the quicksilver tone shift, I really fell into the thing.
and then there’s a reveal around 60% of the way through so upsetting as to viscerally affect me more than anything I’ve read in a long, long time (actually, if I have to pinpoint it, perhaps the last time I was this upset by a book was when I first read gideon the ninth, but where that was a squick, this was—merely? overwhelmingly?—a devastation). this book has stayed with me. and stayed with me. for the past month (while thousand-yard-stare determinedly putting off writing off this review because WHAT DO I EVEN SAY) I’ve been trying to convince anyone and everyone I know irl to read it because I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT WITH SOMEONE and even online screaming might not quite do it.
indeed, I fell so hard into this german-ish-inspired (asterisk asterisk because it’s not just german-ish, of course, and I also want to state for the record that the narrator choosing to make the last name ‘moulène’ rhyme with ‘henna’ rather than ‘men’ is WILD WORK) groundbreaking-opera world that I thought maybe I could give a go at getting into wagner! I failed! just not my bag! but this book made me think that maybe it could be, and that is IMPRESSIVE! (and on top of all the opera and so on there’s a goofy kafka reference that makes me a good chuckle.)
in reading this book, I have stared into the eyes of someone I suspect to be very similar to me in a number of ways, and the abyss stared back.
anyway, go read this book and be upset about it, and tell me about it if you do, if you would be so kind. I can’t say whether the book or audiobook will be better for you and your needs, but go forth and pick your poison, and I do mean poison!
August 18, 2026
I came for the bugs but stayed for the political intrigue!
This book was wild. The writing was an experience all on its own - it was so descriptive and over the top ( I love it!) But it took a bit for me to digest and understand things, so while yes I loved this book - I'm also happy I can move on to an easier writing style 😅
I really thought this was going to be a simple story about a bug exterminator killing some bugs! - boy was I wrong! lol. There's a lot less about the bugs in this than you would think. Most of the story is about the politics of this messed up city.
I LOVED the setting of this book - a city intertwined with a large tree stump with lots of creepy crawlies - the descriptions and imagery of this were stunning!
You get two different story line POVs - Guy, an exterminator with a lot of debt, just trying to keep his younger sister safe. And then Aster - who is the "perfumer" of the Marshal (scary dude) in the upper city. And the upper city sounded crazy, lol. Reminded me a little of how I would picture Gotham City from Batman - just add in more bugs and plants.
"On the patio of a cocktail bar, a violinist serenades a trio of lovers, indifferent or oblivious to the Crypsis operative throwing a black hood over a man at the next table. A geometric arrangement of acrobats rolls past a mugging; students gather to sketch the slavering poodles carved into the canal's bridges"
There was also a heavy emphasis on the Opera and plays - they would have actual duels to the death and beheadings written into the plays. 😲
I will say the romance reader in me was a little sad on how some relationships played out 😅, but I know that wasn't the point and I did really love the sibling dynamic we do get. 🥰
I know this book will not be for everyone - but I'm so happy I found it and am excited to read more from this author!
This book was wild. The writing was an experience all on its own - it was so descriptive and over the top ( I love it!) But it took a bit for me to digest and understand things, so while yes I loved this book - I'm also happy I can move on to an easier writing style 😅
I really thought this was going to be a simple story about a bug exterminator killing some bugs! - boy was I wrong! lol. There's a lot less about the bugs in this than you would think. Most of the story is about the politics of this messed up city.
I LOVED the setting of this book - a city intertwined with a large tree stump with lots of creepy crawlies - the descriptions and imagery of this were stunning!
You get two different story line POVs - Guy, an exterminator with a lot of debt, just trying to keep his younger sister safe. And then Aster - who is the "perfumer" of the Marshal (scary dude) in the upper city. And the upper city sounded crazy, lol. Reminded me a little of how I would picture Gotham City from Batman - just add in more bugs and plants.
"On the patio of a cocktail bar, a violinist serenades a trio of lovers, indifferent or oblivious to the Crypsis operative throwing a black hood over a man at the next table. A geometric arrangement of acrobats rolls past a mugging; students gather to sketch the slavering poodles carved into the canal's bridges"
There was also a heavy emphasis on the Opera and plays - they would have actual duels to the death and beheadings written into the plays. 😲
I will say the romance reader in me was a little sad on how some relationships played out 😅, but I know that wasn't the point and I did really love the sibling dynamic we do get. 🥰
I know this book will not be for everyone - but I'm so happy I found it and am excited to read more from this author!
March 14, 2026
This was sold to me as literary fantasy but upon reading the first near-200 or so pages I'd hesitate to call it such. Ennes has an impressive of sense of scope with the aesthetic kit they wield here, the insectoid/floral aspect to a lot of the worldbuilding here is incredibly neat especially mixing it with a kind of steampunk-without-the-steampunk urban hellscape. The novel plays at literary aspiration in its breadth ambition but overall I can't shake the feeling that this is more pure paperback pulp albeit with an aesthetically off-kilter slant, it's high minded pulp for sure but if it's aiming for that, then it should at least be interesting plot-wise, unfortunately the story here feels like kind of a mess, because Ennes feels so obsessed with gish-galloping the reader with the cool (and it is indeed very cool and original) industrial-insectoid horror-fantasy worldbuilding here that any intrigue in the story itself ends up feeling kind of secondary. There is a very neat thematic hook here with the novel's focus on opera and literally using Art and High Aesthetic Culture as the basis of an entire system of government but again, any political or material intrigue the plot could have had is rendered unnecessarily obtuse beneath all the extraneous detail that is supported only by itself - in other words, pomp, if I'm feeling more uncharitable. Bones but no meat and I guess I just need more than that in my recent reading diet. The characters are also not that interesting and feel like they need a whole extra dimension imo, they're written more like characters made to be acted in a film than book characters, that might be cool if Ennes does something unexpected with that, especially because of the focus on stage and theater here, there's some fun meta shenanigans going on with that already but it isn't really anything that feels like it hasn't been done before (though one bait-and-switch near the beginning did really throw me for a loop in a way I enjoyed a lot, and I would enjoy more of something like it going forward). I know there's supposed to be a bigger twist later but it feels easy to predict and I really hope it's either completely different than what I'm expecting or Ennes manages to make it still feel unique somehow, because if it IS done right it could either justify the structure of this entire thing or collapse the novel entirely. I'll keep on reading because that's sorta an interesting prospect on its own and the book is entertaining and breezy enough to read (blew thru the first 100 pages in a day which is super rare for me) but I do hope the juice is worth the squeeze in the end and I get pleasantly surprised by something just a little less straightforward than what I've read so far.
Edit upon finishing: Ok so this was a rollercoaster of emotions in the end, during the middle part I thought the book was straight up starting to suck because of the issues I highlighted above (and I think the bloat is still a problem by the end) but the big twist was not at all what I was expecting and genuinely got me shook, with that ending some of Ennes' more apparently jarring decisions like the unruly perspective switches could probably be completely justified by rereading and putting every piece of the puzzle together with hindsight. It also cast completely new light on the characters in a way that rectified their initially, in my opinion, 2D writing, they still are kind of 2D but in a way that by the end felt fitting and heartfelt and not immersion-breaking like I was starting to fear. For all the grimdark politicking and kudzu plot screwery the focus on character relationships ended up being very touching and the protagonists' love and devotion to one another is genuinely played pretty straight even with all the crazy plot twists and I thought it worked a lot in the story's favor. I think the middle portion has a big problem with pacing and Ennes could have stood to trim the fat in general but I still can't help but admire their clear passion for this off-kilter world and its denizens. I don't have much time to write over the past week so this review is bad, sorry about that, I'll def have to write a more in-depth analysis of this at some point because for all its glaring flaws it is definitely a very captivating and entertaining work of high-minded genre craziness.
Edit upon finishing: Ok so this was a rollercoaster of emotions in the end, during the middle part I thought the book was straight up starting to suck because of the issues I highlighted above (and I think the bloat is still a problem by the end) but the big twist was not at all what I was expecting and genuinely got me shook, with that ending some of Ennes' more apparently jarring decisions like the unruly perspective switches could probably be completely justified by rereading and putting every piece of the puzzle together with hindsight. It also cast completely new light on the characters in a way that rectified their initially, in my opinion, 2D writing, they still are kind of 2D but in a way that by the end felt fitting and heartfelt and not immersion-breaking like I was starting to fear. For all the grimdark politicking and kudzu plot screwery the focus on character relationships ended up being very touching and the protagonists' love and devotion to one another is genuinely played pretty straight even with all the crazy plot twists and I thought it worked a lot in the story's favor. I think the middle portion has a big problem with pacing and Ennes could have stood to trim the fat in general but I still can't help but admire their clear passion for this off-kilter world and its denizens. I don't have much time to write over the past week so this review is bad, sorry about that, I'll def have to write a more in-depth analysis of this at some point because for all its glaring flaws it is definitely a very captivating and entertaining work of high-minded genre craziness.
January 18, 2026
Call it a 2.5 rounded down
This is a tough one to rate, because on one hand you have this inventive and grotesque worldbuilding that commits fully to its ideas and that is awesome. It's a great premise and the actual story is top notch. It also has some sharp biting social commentary that is overt without being preachy. It works.... On the other hand, this is some very dense prose and oftentimes quite disorienting. While I believe it is intentionally written that way it's a little too much for me (and I tend to enjoy a little denseness and disorientation from time to time).
This is not an easy or comfortable read, and I can see a lot of people DNFing, but if you’re in the mood for something ambitious and different that trusts the reader to keep up, it just may be worth the effort. Especially if you want a surreal, literary weird fantasy and horror mashup.
For me, this writing style was just a to hectic to ever get really into it. Even when I started to get used to it, about halfway through, it just wasn't enjoyable despite actually being an excellent story.
This is a tough one to rate, because on one hand you have this inventive and grotesque worldbuilding that commits fully to its ideas and that is awesome. It's a great premise and the actual story is top notch. It also has some sharp biting social commentary that is overt without being preachy. It works.... On the other hand, this is some very dense prose and oftentimes quite disorienting. While I believe it is intentionally written that way it's a little too much for me (and I tend to enjoy a little denseness and disorientation from time to time).
This is not an easy or comfortable read, and I can see a lot of people DNFing, but if you’re in the mood for something ambitious and different that trusts the reader to keep up, it just may be worth the effort. Especially if you want a surreal, literary weird fantasy and horror mashup.
For me, this writing style was just a to hectic to ever get really into it. Even when I started to get used to it, about halfway through, it just wasn't enjoyable despite actually being an excellent story.
Did Not Finish
May 5, 2026DNF: 40%; ~7.5 hours of audiobook
I TRIED! OK? I really wanted to like it, to endure until a dramatic plot twist would change my mind, and I would fall in love with this book like everyone else. Instead, I was torturing myself.
Here are my takes:
1. The Works of Vermin has a pretty unique and imaginative world-building. I loved the ideas of the art-eating bugs, the power of perfumes, the city's structure, etc. It's a world that treasures art and beauty while being surrounded by bugs, toxins, and poisonous plants.
2. MAIN PROBLEM: we jump from one scene to another every couple of minutes. One moment, a character is talking to someone; the next - he is role-playing and beaten by their rich clients. Listening to the audiobook was a headache. There were so many jumps, so many random short conversations followed suddenly by unrelated action scenes that happened a few hours later. I was confused.
3. Characters and their dialogues - I wasn't a fan. It's an eccentric, alien world, and so are the characters. The way they speak to each other felt detached and unnatural. It was like reading snippets from a script, jumping pages, landing on a random moment, and reading the next random dialogue that has the sole purpose of sounding a certain way for the sake of world-building. A big part of it doesn't do anything to further the plot, and after 7 hours of pretentiousness , I just couldn't relate to anyone.
I am glad so many people enjoyed The Work of Vermin - even if it doesn't resonate with me , I could tell there was a lot of work and professionalism put into it. I am sad I couldn't be one of the fans, but it just wasn't meant to be. Moving on.
I TRIED! OK? I really wanted to like it, to endure until a dramatic plot twist would change my mind, and I would fall in love with this book like everyone else. Instead, I was torturing myself.
Here are my takes:
1. The Works of Vermin has a pretty unique and imaginative world-building. I loved the ideas of the art-eating bugs, the power of perfumes, the city's structure, etc. It's a world that treasures art and beauty while being surrounded by bugs, toxins, and poisonous plants.
2. MAIN PROBLEM: we jump from one scene to another every couple of minutes. One moment, a character is talking to someone; the next - he is role-playing and beaten by their rich clients. Listening to the audiobook was a headache. There were so many jumps, so many random short conversations followed suddenly by unrelated action scenes that happened a few hours later. I was confused.
3. Characters and their dialogues - I wasn't a fan. It's an eccentric, alien world, and so are the characters. The way they speak to each other felt detached and unnatural. It was like reading snippets from a script, jumping pages, landing on a random moment, and reading the next random dialogue that has the sole purpose of sounding a certain way for the sake of world-building. A big part of it doesn't do anything to further the plot, and after 7 hours of pretentiousness , I just couldn't relate to anyone.
I am glad so many people enjoyed The Work of Vermin - even if it doesn't resonate with me , I could tell there was a lot of work and professionalism put into it. I am sad I couldn't be one of the fans, but it just wasn't meant to be. Moving on.
October 7, 2025
*2.5
My issue with The Works of Vermin is as simple as "It's just not my type of book." I didn’t care for any of the characters or the prose, though neither was poorly done, and the plot choices just didn’t work for me, though I know others will love them. It’s one of those books I didn’t enjoy reading but can still identify as objectively good.
The worldbuilding was rich, the structure ambitious, and the ending tied everything together nicely. The dual narrative between Guy and Aster is well executed, giving a layered view of a strange. Still, the pacing dragged, and the characters left me indifferent—Guy felt flat, Aster was underdeveloped, and the side characters were interchangeable.
The Works of Vermin is inventive and skillfully written, but I must say I respected it more than I enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My issue with The Works of Vermin is as simple as "It's just not my type of book." I didn’t care for any of the characters or the prose, though neither was poorly done, and the plot choices just didn’t work for me, though I know others will love them. It’s one of those books I didn’t enjoy reading but can still identify as objectively good.
The worldbuilding was rich, the structure ambitious, and the ending tied everything together nicely. The dual narrative between Guy and Aster is well executed, giving a layered view of a strange. Still, the pacing dragged, and the characters left me indifferent—Guy felt flat, Aster was underdeveloped, and the side characters were interchangeable.
The Works of Vermin is inventive and skillfully written, but I must say I respected it more than I enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
October 14, 2025
Got an arc from Libro.fm
Holy shit yall this is incredible.
When I started this I told my husband “I have no idea what’s going on but I think I’m having fun” and I ended it shaking him by the shoulders telling him he NEEDS to listen to the audiobook.
There’s SO MUCH going on here and the pitch copy doesn’t necessarily do it justice simply by nature of the story. It’s such a tightly woven tapestry of timelines and reveals and information that I cannot fathom the brain power it took to balance them all and come up with this story but I’m more than a little envious of the skill. I don’t know what all I can say without spoiling so I’ll just leave you with the fact that I’m going to be haunted by this one of a long time.
Holy shit yall this is incredible.
When I started this I told my husband “I have no idea what’s going on but I think I’m having fun” and I ended it shaking him by the shoulders telling him he NEEDS to listen to the audiobook.
There’s SO MUCH going on here and the pitch copy doesn’t necessarily do it justice simply by nature of the story. It’s such a tightly woven tapestry of timelines and reveals and information that I cannot fathom the brain power it took to balance them all and come up with this story but I’m more than a little envious of the skill. I don’t know what all I can say without spoiling so I’ll just leave you with the fact that I’m going to be haunted by this one of a long time.
Want to Read
January 8, 2025no one is prepared for who i am going to become when this comes out
November 5, 2025
What the fuck, what the fuck. Und Hiron Ennes hat nicht mal einen Wikipediaeintrag. What.
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1645808644i/7494844._UX200_CR0,6,200,200_.jpg)
Did Not Finish
January 21, 2026Not feeling the writing style.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 901 reviews