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Eradicator
In the NICU, she holds the most fragile lives in her hands. But something inside her is breaking. She's only twenty-four, but between the drugs, the impulsive hookups, and the growing paranoia, her life is unraveling fast. All she knows is that it feels good. Powerful. Like a new version of herself is taking shape. And when it does, people are going to die.
- GenresHorror
248 pages, Paperback
Published August 13, 2025
About the author
David Simmons
5 books42 followersDavid Simmons is the author of the critically acclaimed “Eradicator” and the breakthrough cult novels “Ghosts of East Baltimore” and “Ghosts of West Baltimore.” His work has appeared internationally in numerous magazines and anthologies. He lives in Baltimore with his wife and three daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
September 18, 2025
2.5 stars, rounded up.
September 24, 2025
The other day I was driving up Hoffman Street when this car came tearing around the corner, speeding toward me. If you drive in Baltimore, you’ll understand what I mean by this description: Virginia tags, tinted windows, some dirty white sedan with a pointlessly oversized grill (I don’t have a memory for makes or models); a big chunk was missing out the front bumper too, from smashing into something…like it was about to do to me!
I swerved to avoid it, and as it accelerated past, I glimpsed a pink, furry steering wheel cover and the silhouette of a young woman behind it.
Where was she going? What’s the big hurry? What is so important that you’d rather smash into me than lose three seconds of time by slowing down at your stop sign?
It made me think of Eradicator by David Simmons, a book I started on a sick day from work and finished over the course of the next several mornings. The main character is a young woman, Jada. She has some random job at Hopkins hospital and basically drives all over town causing destruction, and, as you’ll see within the opening chapters, leaves a trail of dead bodies in her wake.
What makes Jada so fascinating and terrifying as a character is she’s so ordinary. Simmons has really captured the mindset of a basic, lower-middle class Bmore county brat like I’ve never before read. This book’s cover text compares it to “American Psycho” which is apt because Patrick Bateman never tries to explain his appetite for destruction. It just flows through him, matter of factly. The character of Jada likewise implies a violent undercurrent to Americans that is incomprehensible and automatic, but is no longer exclusive to elite Ivy leaguers. Trickle down sociopathy in action, my friends!
It’s different from America Psycho though because there is a more Kafka-esque aspect here, as Jada may or may not be undergoing drastic physical changes.
This book is full of insane violence, wild action, and surreal humor, made gripping by Simmons’ visceral descriptions and original voice. So many turns of phrases caused me to either laugh or wince. Oh, and get ready to learn about Cal Ripkin’s wife too, lol.
Don’t miss this one! And stay safe out there. Ordinary folk are going through changes, and not in a good way either.
I swerved to avoid it, and as it accelerated past, I glimpsed a pink, furry steering wheel cover and the silhouette of a young woman behind it.
Where was she going? What’s the big hurry? What is so important that you’d rather smash into me than lose three seconds of time by slowing down at your stop sign?
It made me think of Eradicator by David Simmons, a book I started on a sick day from work and finished over the course of the next several mornings. The main character is a young woman, Jada. She has some random job at Hopkins hospital and basically drives all over town causing destruction, and, as you’ll see within the opening chapters, leaves a trail of dead bodies in her wake.
What makes Jada so fascinating and terrifying as a character is she’s so ordinary. Simmons has really captured the mindset of a basic, lower-middle class Bmore county brat like I’ve never before read. This book’s cover text compares it to “American Psycho” which is apt because Patrick Bateman never tries to explain his appetite for destruction. It just flows through him, matter of factly. The character of Jada likewise implies a violent undercurrent to Americans that is incomprehensible and automatic, but is no longer exclusive to elite Ivy leaguers. Trickle down sociopathy in action, my friends!
It’s different from America Psycho though because there is a more Kafka-esque aspect here, as Jada may or may not be undergoing drastic physical changes.
This book is full of insane violence, wild action, and surreal humor, made gripping by Simmons’ visceral descriptions and original voice. So many turns of phrases caused me to either laugh or wince. Oh, and get ready to learn about Cal Ripkin’s wife too, lol.
Don’t miss this one! And stay safe out there. Ordinary folk are going through changes, and not in a good way either.
September 3, 2025
DAVID! Why do I feel like this book beat me up! This was wild and I legit read it in one sitting. My girl Jada went through it in this story, and one minute I was laughing while the next I was scrunching my face. It was entertaining, dark, hilarious, and just plain wild. Now excuse me while I binge more of his books.
November 6, 2025
I purchased a copy of this book from the author, last month at VoidCon. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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While reading this book I found myself considering people, as individuals, and our connection to places. I have always been intrigued by creators who feel a deep bond to particular place. The people who have grown up in a place, live there, manifest their creative energies there. Sure these folks may travel, but they're forever rooted to a certain place. This runs completely counter to who I am, through choice or not. I think the longest I've lived in any given city, town etc., was eleven years. I seek that kind rooted feeling, that anchoring. David Simmons, is exactly the kind of person that so fascinates me. For David, this epicenter of life, is Baltimore. David will tell you himself, that the two things he loves the most: his kids, and Baltimore, the latter being a subject he could talk at length about for days.
Typically I'd have written this review shortly after finishing this book, but found myself stuck. My only knowledge of Baltimore, was either through history books, or it's ties to the life and work of John Waters. I had not true frame of reference, but was consumed with a need to get a sense of this place, the way David experiences it. Books like Eradicator demand this, it has a psychic footprint, that resonates on a level you have to get a grip on, for it to properly wallop your own head space.
David writes of Baltimore the way Men, who have spent their lives out on the water, write about the sea. The beauty, hidden depths, and cruel indifference. Truly, there is that deep admiration, that heart rooted anchor, the respect. All balanced with the knowledge, the cold truth that "the city will take care of it". Baltimore is a character in its own right, in Davids book. Character, ecosystem, omnipresence, pulse.
Eradictor is a living, breathing, black-ooze-vomiting nightmare. A neon phantasmagoria, forever online, mainlining dopamine and pills. Awake, aware, monetized, monsterous and looking good as hell. I think perhaps what struck me the most is institutionalization of the grotesque. The bizarre, the heinous and the uncomfortable are treated with silence or given that beige veneer of accepted reality in the nightmare dumpster fire that is 2020s USA. It's that knowledge as the reader that you know it's all wrong, repugnant and foul. With obsidian toned and humor and nightmarish absurdity, David works this knowledge into your head. like a fleck of something sharp and rancid, working its way beneath your finger nail.
I was lucky to get a taste of David's writing and vocal recitation, while attending VoidCon, in Gettysburg. I will not say his reading fully prepared me for what he delivers in Eradicator. At most, my minds eye got a faint glimpse of what was waiting in the pages of his novel. If his reading was a slap to the brain, this book is a proper curb stomp. I mean that in the best way possible.
Whether you have already read his book, or are considering picking it up. I submit this playlist of music, approved by the author, to help you acclimate to psychic aether Davids story exists lurking around corners in his beloved city of Baltimore.
Eradicator recommended listening (GET U THAT BALTIMORE BRAIN!)
Soduh - WALKING WORK OF ART (ALBUM)
GGL SLICK - TRIPS TO MICHIGAN (album)
Baltimore CLub remix of Mr Postman of the Marvelettes song
Jimmy Jones - Watch Out for The Big Girl
Janelle Monae - I Like That
O.M.C. ANT - Baltimore Slang (Dummy) . "Watch the video to get a sense of what Baltimore is like"
-
While reading this book I found myself considering people, as individuals, and our connection to places. I have always been intrigued by creators who feel a deep bond to particular place. The people who have grown up in a place, live there, manifest their creative energies there. Sure these folks may travel, but they're forever rooted to a certain place. This runs completely counter to who I am, through choice or not. I think the longest I've lived in any given city, town etc., was eleven years. I seek that kind rooted feeling, that anchoring. David Simmons, is exactly the kind of person that so fascinates me. For David, this epicenter of life, is Baltimore. David will tell you himself, that the two things he loves the most: his kids, and Baltimore, the latter being a subject he could talk at length about for days.
Typically I'd have written this review shortly after finishing this book, but found myself stuck. My only knowledge of Baltimore, was either through history books, or it's ties to the life and work of John Waters. I had not true frame of reference, but was consumed with a need to get a sense of this place, the way David experiences it. Books like Eradicator demand this, it has a psychic footprint, that resonates on a level you have to get a grip on, for it to properly wallop your own head space.
David writes of Baltimore the way Men, who have spent their lives out on the water, write about the sea. The beauty, hidden depths, and cruel indifference. Truly, there is that deep admiration, that heart rooted anchor, the respect. All balanced with the knowledge, the cold truth that "the city will take care of it". Baltimore is a character in its own right, in Davids book. Character, ecosystem, omnipresence, pulse.
Eradictor is a living, breathing, black-ooze-vomiting nightmare. A neon phantasmagoria, forever online, mainlining dopamine and pills. Awake, aware, monetized, monsterous and looking good as hell. I think perhaps what struck me the most is institutionalization of the grotesque. The bizarre, the heinous and the uncomfortable are treated with silence or given that beige veneer of accepted reality in the nightmare dumpster fire that is 2020s USA. It's that knowledge as the reader that you know it's all wrong, repugnant and foul. With obsidian toned and humor and nightmarish absurdity, David works this knowledge into your head. like a fleck of something sharp and rancid, working its way beneath your finger nail.
I was lucky to get a taste of David's writing and vocal recitation, while attending VoidCon, in Gettysburg. I will not say his reading fully prepared me for what he delivers in Eradicator. At most, my minds eye got a faint glimpse of what was waiting in the pages of his novel. If his reading was a slap to the brain, this book is a proper curb stomp. I mean that in the best way possible.
Whether you have already read his book, or are considering picking it up. I submit this playlist of music, approved by the author, to help you acclimate to psychic aether Davids story exists lurking around corners in his beloved city of Baltimore.
Eradicator recommended listening (GET U THAT BALTIMORE BRAIN!)
Soduh - WALKING WORK OF ART (ALBUM)
GGL SLICK - TRIPS TO MICHIGAN (album)
Baltimore CLub remix of Mr Postman of the Marvelettes song
Jimmy Jones - Watch Out for The Big Girl
Janelle Monae - I Like That
O.M.C. ANT - Baltimore Slang (Dummy) . "Watch the video to get a sense of what Baltimore is like"
November 5, 2025
david simmons is a writer that demands to be read. his talent and gifts are simply unignorable. he is clearly someone dedicated to a singular dark vision and does not give a shit whether it shocks or offends or grosses you out.
this book is very readable. short chapters keep the pages moving and much of the first half is propelled by the protagonist’s mysterious physical illness. the sentences themselves are depraved little miracles of prose. however, if you’re looking for answers or a grand purpose, there is little in the way of a cohesive statement or thematic clarity. and that absence of any sort of redemption or radiance is maybe the most disturbing punch the author employs.
this book is very readable. short chapters keep the pages moving and much of the first half is propelled by the protagonist’s mysterious physical illness. the sentences themselves are depraved little miracles of prose. however, if you’re looking for answers or a grand purpose, there is little in the way of a cohesive statement or thematic clarity. and that absence of any sort of redemption or radiance is maybe the most disturbing punch the author employs.
November 10, 2025
Eradicator is so bonkers. Short and unrelenting. The main character, Jada, is a deeply troubled young woman who readers meet as she’s on a path to total self annihilation. Jada’s inner dialogue is weird and gross and hilarious. Things pop up in the story that make you wonder if she’s losing it. Or are you losing it? Is the whole entire world losing it?
Perfect read if you’re in the mood for a book about a woman who is truly finding herself — in a way that puts everyone around her at risk.
Thank you to the author, David Simmons, for the review copy! I did indeed fuck with it
Perfect read if you’re in the mood for a book about a woman who is truly finding herself — in a way that puts everyone around her at risk.
Thank you to the author, David Simmons, for the review copy! I did indeed fuck with it
April 7, 2026
"When she says my name, she says the "da" like "duh," and for this infraction I want to kill her. For this slight, I want to butcher my best friend and I want it to hurt and last forever and cause dysfunction in the lives of her loved ones. I want her death to be confusing for her perfect fucking family."
Eradicator is one of those novels that's so unbelievably bonkers, it makes you wonder if it's actually you that's losing it instead of the narrator. This is an unrelentingly vicious and cruel novel, it feels like this is what you would get if you dropped acid and then tried to recite both American Psycho and Metamorphosis. It is such a foul, vile, fucking gross story, and it's so visceral that it's actually kind of impressive for that alone. Eradicator made my skin crawl, it made me feel as if someone was taking a cheese grater to my face. This is such a weird book, but, even when it's at its most insane, you can sort of buy it, because David Simmons is just that effective and evocative of an author. This is a seethingly angry, extremely vivid novel, but, in a way that feels weirdly cathartic.
At its core, Eradicator is a story of the annihilation of the self and of rebirth. This is exactly the kind of book I picture when I talk about 'weird-girl' literature, because this book truly nails what it's like to watch a life spiral out of control. It is not a book for the faint of heart and, it is absolutely not a book for readers who need to like the narrator, because, Jada is a mess, she is a reprehensible, unhinged person in the most fun way possible. There's so many positive things I have to say about this book, but, what I loved the most is how Simmons writes about Baltimore - Eradicator has such a strong sense of place, and it feels so intimate, you can really envision yourself in the same clubs and on the same streets as our narrator.
This is a surreal fucking experience, perhaps its in the way that this all feels so very ordinary, so pedestrian, Jada, her living conditions, her job, her car, it feels so god-damn normal, and then suddenly you're slapped in the face with this horrific body horror weirdness that just scatters your mind. It's a deeply uncomfortable read, truly, this thing is brutal, it's page after page of utter atrocity, and yet, it will still make you take a step back and truly think about people, and the way they behave, and honestly? It's delightful. Eradicator is the siren song of the burned-out and over-worked masses who are ready to let their intrusive thoughts finally run wild.
"I use my machete-the knife that isn't a knife-to do it and about halfway through the fingers on my left hand, I pass out on the bathroom floor like a twink and wake up in a smaller puddle of blood than I'm used to waking up in. Like there's less of me. Like I've started shrinking."
Eradicator is one of those novels that's so unbelievably bonkers, it makes you wonder if it's actually you that's losing it instead of the narrator. This is an unrelentingly vicious and cruel novel, it feels like this is what you would get if you dropped acid and then tried to recite both American Psycho and Metamorphosis. It is such a foul, vile, fucking gross story, and it's so visceral that it's actually kind of impressive for that alone. Eradicator made my skin crawl, it made me feel as if someone was taking a cheese grater to my face. This is such a weird book, but, even when it's at its most insane, you can sort of buy it, because David Simmons is just that effective and evocative of an author. This is a seethingly angry, extremely vivid novel, but, in a way that feels weirdly cathartic.
At its core, Eradicator is a story of the annihilation of the self and of rebirth. This is exactly the kind of book I picture when I talk about 'weird-girl' literature, because this book truly nails what it's like to watch a life spiral out of control. It is not a book for the faint of heart and, it is absolutely not a book for readers who need to like the narrator, because, Jada is a mess, she is a reprehensible, unhinged person in the most fun way possible. There's so many positive things I have to say about this book, but, what I loved the most is how Simmons writes about Baltimore - Eradicator has such a strong sense of place, and it feels so intimate, you can really envision yourself in the same clubs and on the same streets as our narrator.
"Did you know that 40% of police commit domestic abuse? It's a fact. I saw it on Reddit and Reddit is always completely factual. All of you, just beating the shit out of your wives. Just a big wife-beating party. You just toss em all around the room like laundry bags. Sacks of autumn leaves. Big yard bags. That's what you do, Thomas? You beat the shit out of your wife." Now it's his turn to let the line go dead for a bit. "I don't have a wife," he says, frustrated. "And I'd never lay a hand on my husband." "Oooooo, husband," I say. "How progressive. How contemporary. I bet you beat your gay-ass husband."
This is a surreal fucking experience, perhaps its in the way that this all feels so very ordinary, so pedestrian, Jada, her living conditions, her job, her car, it feels so god-damn normal, and then suddenly you're slapped in the face with this horrific body horror weirdness that just scatters your mind. It's a deeply uncomfortable read, truly, this thing is brutal, it's page after page of utter atrocity, and yet, it will still make you take a step back and truly think about people, and the way they behave, and honestly? It's delightful. Eradicator is the siren song of the burned-out and over-worked masses who are ready to let their intrusive thoughts finally run wild.
"I use my machete-the knife that isn't a knife-to do it and about halfway through the fingers on my left hand, I pass out on the bathroom floor like a twink and wake up in a smaller puddle of blood than I'm used to waking up in. Like there's less of me. Like I've started shrinking."
September 5, 2025
Hahahahaha what the HELL, David. This was gross, weird, and amazing.
Definitely in the category of weird girl horror, so fans of AMERICAN PSYCHO and METAMORPHOSIS will love it.
Definitely in the category of weird girl horror, so fans of AMERICAN PSYCHO and METAMORPHOSIS will love it.
September 29, 2025
I can only compare my experience of reading Eradicator to three equally unlikely things at once:
1. A self-help sermon that tells you to stop apologizing for existing,
2. The kind of violent intrusive thought you’d never admit to your therapist, and
3. A body horror freakout that sneaks up like the weird kid at the school dance, only this time he’s brought scalpels.
That’s not a combination you see often. Most novels pick a lane, but David Simmons doesn’t. He builds a highway system out of three unrelated roads and somehow convinces you that the traffic makes sense.
Born and raised in Baltimore, Simmons writes characters who are both burned out and hyperkinetic. Their souls are slowly corroding, but their bodies haven’t gotten the memo yet. His protagonist Jada. might be his best creation yet: a woman who is literally disintegrating in slow motion who still finds a way to laugh at the absurdity of it all. There’s a kind of gallows humor to her voice that feels less like a character choice and more like the only survival mechanism left.
The thing is, Eradicator is the most relatable novel with the least relatable premise I’ve ever read. You probably don’t know what it’s like to sprout horrific, Cronenbergian appendages in real time. But you probably do know what it’s like to feel dehumanized by contemporary life, to have your individuality chewed up by bosses, algorithms, or just the general grind of being alive. And if you’ve ever flirted with the thought that maybe the darkest version of yourself is also the truest one, Jada’s murderous tailspin makes a terrifying kind of sense.
That’s where Simmons really nails it: he takes the chaos of late-capitalist existence, the burnout, the bad-faith advice about “resilience,” the sense that everyone else is more put-together than you and translates it into body horror. He doesn’t ask whether we’ll survive; he asks whether survival is even worth the cost.
So yes, Eradicator is brutal and grotesque and maybe a little insane. But it’s also cathartic in the same way blasting Nine Inch Nails in your teenage bedroom used to be cathartic in 1999. It reminds you there’s power in embracing who you are, even if who you are happens to be a monster. Especially then.
1. A self-help sermon that tells you to stop apologizing for existing,
2. The kind of violent intrusive thought you’d never admit to your therapist, and
3. A body horror freakout that sneaks up like the weird kid at the school dance, only this time he’s brought scalpels.
That’s not a combination you see often. Most novels pick a lane, but David Simmons doesn’t. He builds a highway system out of three unrelated roads and somehow convinces you that the traffic makes sense.
Born and raised in Baltimore, Simmons writes characters who are both burned out and hyperkinetic. Their souls are slowly corroding, but their bodies haven’t gotten the memo yet. His protagonist Jada. might be his best creation yet: a woman who is literally disintegrating in slow motion who still finds a way to laugh at the absurdity of it all. There’s a kind of gallows humor to her voice that feels less like a character choice and more like the only survival mechanism left.
The thing is, Eradicator is the most relatable novel with the least relatable premise I’ve ever read. You probably don’t know what it’s like to sprout horrific, Cronenbergian appendages in real time. But you probably do know what it’s like to feel dehumanized by contemporary life, to have your individuality chewed up by bosses, algorithms, or just the general grind of being alive. And if you’ve ever flirted with the thought that maybe the darkest version of yourself is also the truest one, Jada’s murderous tailspin makes a terrifying kind of sense.
That’s where Simmons really nails it: he takes the chaos of late-capitalist existence, the burnout, the bad-faith advice about “resilience,” the sense that everyone else is more put-together than you and translates it into body horror. He doesn’t ask whether we’ll survive; he asks whether survival is even worth the cost.
So yes, Eradicator is brutal and grotesque and maybe a little insane. But it’s also cathartic in the same way blasting Nine Inch Nails in your teenage bedroom used to be cathartic in 1999. It reminds you there’s power in embracing who you are, even if who you are happens to be a monster. Especially then.
September 25, 2025
It's giving Georges Bataille meets ODB. It's giving watching your wife give birth PTSD.
I tried hard not to read this all in one day because I wanted to enjoy but I enjoyed it so much I read it in one day.
I loved the shit out of this dudes short fiction and ordered this book as soon as I discovered it's existence. There have been a few American Psycho clones lately but none of them hit like this. American Psycho meets the Fly it says on the back, but this is a lot more than that.
David and Grant Wamack are covering cultural ground that no one's really attempting right now and this is the latest semi-cynical assault on where we're at as a post-literate, social media influenced society.
Blistering shit here, and I hope this man is seen and protected as the national treasure that he is.
11/10 would watch the hell out of The Whale. Tktktktktktktktktktktk
I tried hard not to read this all in one day because I wanted to enjoy but I enjoyed it so much I read it in one day.
I loved the shit out of this dudes short fiction and ordered this book as soon as I discovered it's existence. There have been a few American Psycho clones lately but none of them hit like this. American Psycho meets the Fly it says on the back, but this is a lot more than that.
David and Grant Wamack are covering cultural ground that no one's really attempting right now and this is the latest semi-cynical assault on where we're at as a post-literate, social media influenced society.
Blistering shit here, and I hope this man is seen and protected as the national treasure that he is.
11/10 would watch the hell out of The Whale. Tktktktktktktktktktktk
September 5, 2025
This novel is all kinds of fucked up. But it also includes plenty of tidbits most probably do not know. David Simmons surely read up on things and came prepared to execute this one with panache and punch. But it’s still all kinds of fucked up and not for the faint of heart.
December 5, 2025
It’s giving Bad B*tch
It’s giving Kafka
It’s giving Patrick Bateman
It’s giving Read Me
It’s giving Kafka
It’s giving Patrick Bateman
It’s giving Read Me
October 8, 2025
Nasty and fun, true, but didn't quite bowl me over, like a solid hit of ambergris would, I guess. Social media body horror doesn't scratch every itch that I have, it would seem.
November 6, 2025
“There are some quantities that are just too big for us to manage”
I’m not sure I can write a review that will do this book justice…but bear with me while I try.
This grabbed me from the beginning and refused to let go. The analogies and metaphors in this are masterpieces that take their points and drive them straight into your heart and brain simultaneously. While I expected the clever, well researched, and specific analogies and metaphors David Simmons usually delivers he somehow improved them and made them even more vivid and provoking in this. There are absolute gruesome atrocities that occur in this story yet somehow it left me feeling empathy for the character(s) that committed them. This will pull on your most base human heart strings while your brain tries to reason and weigh out justice. Good luck brain there are no clear lines in this one. This is strange yet familiar, gruesome and heartfelt, terrible but wonderful.
Your limbic system is in for a ride with this one, in fact I recommend preparing your entire brain for this book.
Side note: I especially highly recommend reading this if you are a Marylander or a Baltimore resident. While it’s certainly not required there are quite a few awesome and familiar nods and references in this. For example:
“Or if you took a claw cracker and placed your ring finger in it. Cracked your finger back until it popped. The kind they make for blue crabs, the tool that nobody in Maryland knows the actual name for because nobody here uses them.” 🦀
I’m not sure I can write a review that will do this book justice…but bear with me while I try.
This grabbed me from the beginning and refused to let go. The analogies and metaphors in this are masterpieces that take their points and drive them straight into your heart and brain simultaneously. While I expected the clever, well researched, and specific analogies and metaphors David Simmons usually delivers he somehow improved them and made them even more vivid and provoking in this. There are absolute gruesome atrocities that occur in this story yet somehow it left me feeling empathy for the character(s) that committed them. This will pull on your most base human heart strings while your brain tries to reason and weigh out justice. Good luck brain there are no clear lines in this one. This is strange yet familiar, gruesome and heartfelt, terrible but wonderful.
Your limbic system is in for a ride with this one, in fact I recommend preparing your entire brain for this book.
Side note: I especially highly recommend reading this if you are a Marylander or a Baltimore resident. While it’s certainly not required there are quite a few awesome and familiar nods and references in this. For example:
“Or if you took a claw cracker and placed your ring finger in it. Cracked your finger back until it popped. The kind they make for blue crabs, the tool that nobody in Maryland knows the actual name for because nobody here uses them.” 🦀
July 4, 2025
I have a hunch that this is going to be a very successful book. I will break down why:
1) David Simmons is a very intelligent, naturally curious person. This is reflected in a writing style that is concrete, emotive, and authoritative. It reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk, or even better, Amelia Gray, in that this novel contains sudden, clinical bursts of medical, biological, or historical trivia in an otherwise surreal or emotional scene. We follow our heroine from her job as a car seat safety specialist at Johns Hopkins, to her nights out on the town, to her descent into something other than human via tight chapters that should come with a Surgeon General's warning for nausea. But along the way Simmons' natural curiosity is refracted through the prism of his protagonist's overwhelming hate into a story that is as addictive as it is annihilating.
2) Eradicator takes the form of this genre and distills it into moonshine. It is in the lineage of American Psycho, The Killer Inside Me, even Tampa a little bit, but puts pressure on it until it is compressed into a diamond. There are books that invent a genre, and books that do that genre so well they effectively kill them. That's what Eradicator does.
3) The book takes you by the scalp and drags you to an ending that most books wouldn't dare to try. It's a bold novel that charms you along as our protagonist is sawing off Tinder dates' heads, freaking out her coworkers, and turning into a mutant.
4) The choice to make his protagonist female would not have worked in a lesser writer's hands, but Simmons approaches all of his characters with the fundamentally important mixture of sympathy and humorous, clinical detachment. If you're wondering how to replicate what makes this book work, it's to have spent a lifetime with complicated people, where you love them for their faults. The "commentary," if you can call it that, naturally arises from the ability to laugh at people's evil rather than judge it.
Eradicator is a blistering, ugly book that has a top spot in my favorite books of all time. And I believe other people will feel the same.
1) David Simmons is a very intelligent, naturally curious person. This is reflected in a writing style that is concrete, emotive, and authoritative. It reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk, or even better, Amelia Gray, in that this novel contains sudden, clinical bursts of medical, biological, or historical trivia in an otherwise surreal or emotional scene. We follow our heroine from her job as a car seat safety specialist at Johns Hopkins, to her nights out on the town, to her descent into something other than human via tight chapters that should come with a Surgeon General's warning for nausea. But along the way Simmons' natural curiosity is refracted through the prism of his protagonist's overwhelming hate into a story that is as addictive as it is annihilating.
2) Eradicator takes the form of this genre and distills it into moonshine. It is in the lineage of American Psycho, The Killer Inside Me, even Tampa a little bit, but puts pressure on it until it is compressed into a diamond. There are books that invent a genre, and books that do that genre so well they effectively kill them. That's what Eradicator does.
3) The book takes you by the scalp and drags you to an ending that most books wouldn't dare to try. It's a bold novel that charms you along as our protagonist is sawing off Tinder dates' heads, freaking out her coworkers, and turning into a mutant.
4) The choice to make his protagonist female would not have worked in a lesser writer's hands, but Simmons approaches all of his characters with the fundamentally important mixture of sympathy and humorous, clinical detachment. If you're wondering how to replicate what makes this book work, it's to have spent a lifetime with complicated people, where you love them for their faults. The "commentary," if you can call it that, naturally arises from the ability to laugh at people's evil rather than judge it.
Eradicator is a blistering, ugly book that has a top spot in my favorite books of all time. And I believe other people will feel the same.
December 16, 2025
I was reached out by the author himself, offered a free copy of his book ”Eradicator” for a honest review. He mentioned that based on my instagram book reviews, I might like this one.
Man, what the?! This book was absolutely ridiculously amazing. I was hooked in from the very first chapter and what a ride this was.
The FMC Jada is what most of the women feel and think deep inside (don’t try to deny it!) and this one hit hard. Jada is giving unhinged, messy, feral maddness. We are just following up her mindless road to the very rock bottom, love it.
Even if the ending felt a bit too messy for my taste, I can forgive the last chapters insanity, because I had such a great time throughout the book.
I was laughing, shocked and disgusted multiple times while reading it - phenomanal. This is the kind of unhinged, female rage-energy books I love.
And I’m not just saying this because I got a gifted-copy - I went in blindly, trusting that author really did look at what kind of books I have read. This one was definitely hit. Will be one of my top 10 books of 2025.
”Fuck you Phil.” 🤘🏻
Man, what the?! This book was absolutely ridiculously amazing. I was hooked in from the very first chapter and what a ride this was.
The FMC Jada is what most of the women feel and think deep inside (don’t try to deny it!) and this one hit hard. Jada is giving unhinged, messy, feral maddness. We are just following up her mindless road to the very rock bottom, love it.
Even if the ending felt a bit too messy for my taste, I can forgive the last chapters insanity, because I had such a great time throughout the book.
I was laughing, shocked and disgusted multiple times while reading it - phenomanal. This is the kind of unhinged, female rage-energy books I love.
And I’m not just saying this because I got a gifted-copy - I went in blindly, trusting that author really did look at what kind of books I have read. This one was definitely hit. Will be one of my top 10 books of 2025.
”Fuck you Phil.” 🤘🏻
September 23, 2025
Simmons is absolutely incapable of boring the reader. This thing is bursting with lore and specificity yet it never bogs down the narrative. Bracingly gnarly and soaked in dread while also genuinely, truly funny, Eradicator is so unique and refreshingly wrong *yet* I have a feeling I can sell some non-reader friends on it just on how irresistibly fucked up it is (and how rad the book looks as a physical object). The book to beat for 2025 so far.
October 17, 2025
Gross, hysterical, and beautifully written. Easy to compare a lot of it to American Psycho, but that's just the surface. David Simmons creates a terrifyingly strange world simply by showing us what our fucking ridiculous world looks like from the outside.
September 25, 2025
Like Cronenberg's The Fly, but....swaggier? (I don't know if that's a word)
For fans of Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Chander Morrison.
For fans of Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk, and Chander Morrison.
October 2, 2025
Absolutely nobody writes like David Simmons and this is maybe his best book yet. Funny, repulsive, deep, and dark. This thing rips from beginning to end.
October 29, 2025
yeah that ruled
January 29, 2026
4.5 Stars
February 21, 2026
cronenberg set in Baltimore, every detail described perfectly, would read a book about throat goat.
July 10, 2025
Inspired by the likes of Charlene Elsby and BR Yeager's Apocalypse Party titles, David Simmons' Eradicator is dark and intense. We follow a young black woman as her health disintegrates, and her mind begins to unravel. We witness her transformation, her addiction to social media, and a fictional reality TV show that is quite frankly brilliant. Simmons writes his diverse characters and dialogue with an authenticity that's hard to fake. I hate the term urban, but this is the urban Apocalypse Party fix you haven't realized you needed. No exaggeration, this is incredible and will surely become a future cult classic.
February 16, 2026
Outragious, unreliable, fast paced, none stop WTF. The writing is punchy AF. And did I find myself laughing!?
August 17, 2025
Jada - the narrator of David Simmons' ERADICATOR - is the most unhinged character in literature since Patrick Bateman, which will undoubtedly be the cause of this novel inspiring endless comparisons to American Psycho. However, ERADICATOR is something wholly original. It is one of the funniest and weirdest books I've ever read, and most definitely one of the darkest. Propulsive, insane, and entertaining enough to be considered pulpy; distinct, clever, and sharp enough to become a cherished literary classic.
August 29, 2025
Spoke with David for about an hour about his new novel. Check it out here.
A wild, nasty, brutal novel.
A wild, nasty, brutal novel.
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