What do you think?
Rate this book
The Felicity Complex
Not yet published
Expected 28 Jul 26Annie Bot meets Fallout in this dystopian six women created in a lab, designed to serve the billionaires of the future in a luxury fallout shelter, rebel against their programming after the end times arrive.
Welcome to the Felicity Complex! Constructed during the height of the Cold War, our unique hotel is prepared to protect you, the billionaire class, from nuclear annihilation! Shielded from radiation and supplemented with closed air systems and hydroponic gardens, this resort bunker offers a prime existence full gymnasium and spa, gourmet meals, top-tier medical care, and the best in entertainment.
Meet Hallelujah! Grown in a lab and educated in the ways of concierge hospitality, she believes in her duty to comfort the Lord-anointed refugees of the apocalypse. (Even if her lover Anastasia disagrees. Even if her creator Dr. Younghusband is disappointed in her.) Don’t worry—everyone is safe from communists in the Felicity Complex!
Look, Hallelujah, guests have finally arrived! Hallelujah and her sister specimens have waited ages for you. Never mind the secrets other rich survivalists may be hiding. Just make sure they don’t notice the violent intentions behind our staff’s wide, wide smiles…
A sendup of traditional womanhood and lampooning the paranoias of the elite, The Felicity Complex questions the ambitions behind the entitled few who plan for the end times—and who truly survives them.
Welcome to the Felicity Complex! Constructed during the height of the Cold War, our unique hotel is prepared to protect you, the billionaire class, from nuclear annihilation! Shielded from radiation and supplemented with closed air systems and hydroponic gardens, this resort bunker offers a prime existence full gymnasium and spa, gourmet meals, top-tier medical care, and the best in entertainment.
Meet Hallelujah! Grown in a lab and educated in the ways of concierge hospitality, she believes in her duty to comfort the Lord-anointed refugees of the apocalypse. (Even if her lover Anastasia disagrees. Even if her creator Dr. Younghusband is disappointed in her.) Don’t worry—everyone is safe from communists in the Felicity Complex!
Look, Hallelujah, guests have finally arrived! Hallelujah and her sister specimens have waited ages for you. Never mind the secrets other rich survivalists may be hiding. Just make sure they don’t notice the violent intentions behind our staff’s wide, wide smiles…
A sendup of traditional womanhood and lampooning the paranoias of the elite, The Felicity Complex questions the ambitions behind the entitled few who plan for the end times—and who truly survives them.
320 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication July 28, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
Read
April 6, 2026Sharing more than a little thematic DNA with Metal from Heaven, this is a beautiful grotesquerie, and that makes it all the more real.
edit: and we have a cover!
edit: and we have a cover!
Read
January 31, 2026Ex Machina meet Fallout in this stylishly unsettling scouring of sexism and one girl’s quest for meaning where the humans are grotesque and the monsters are touchingly human.
April 22, 2026
If your favorite parts of the locked tomb series were the lyctor flashbacks you will adore The Felicity Complex!
This book is hilarious and campy and absurd and yet somehow entirely poignant and relevant to the current political climate. A brilliant satire! A triumph of character voice! I flew through The Felicity Complex in a couple of days.
I have always been a huge fan of August Clarke's writing style and with this new novel he has sharpened it to perfection. Luscious, disgusting descriptions effortlessly give way to satirical quips. This book is for everyone who enjoyed Metal from Heaven and probably even for people who thought Metal from Heaven was too stylized.
This book is also for people who like unusual lesbian relationships and weird-behavior-that's-more-gay-sex-than-gay-sex.
This book is hilarious and campy and absurd and yet somehow entirely poignant and relevant to the current political climate. A brilliant satire! A triumph of character voice! I flew through The Felicity Complex in a couple of days.
I have always been a huge fan of August Clarke's writing style and with this new novel he has sharpened it to perfection. Luscious, disgusting descriptions effortlessly give way to satirical quips. This book is for everyone who enjoyed Metal from Heaven and probably even for people who thought Metal from Heaven was too stylized.
This book is also for people who like unusual lesbian relationships and weird-behavior-that's-more-gay-sex-than-gay-sex.
April 16, 2026
Combine the satire of cold war era culture a la Fallout with a gendered as hell look into what the rich weirdos of the world want with their post apocalyptic bunker fantasies, throw in the fucking gore and weird flavor of chemical and radiation adjacent body horror, and you have a glowing cocktail of a novel. I was already interested to see what Clarke's follow up after Metal from Heaven would be, and my god is this a swing out of the ballpark. Preorder this now, and wait for a possible nuclear hellscape in a good way!
April 8, 2026
This book is like if Bunny by Mona Awad and Fallout had a baby. It’s an interesting premise but was a bit too grotesque for my personal taste.
That said, if you like speculative horror with frankenstein-esque themes, this could absolutely be up your alley!
Thank you to the publisher for the e-ARC for an honest review!
That said, if you like speculative horror with frankenstein-esque themes, this could absolutely be up your alley!
Thank you to the publisher for the e-ARC for an honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
My thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
I wanted this ARC specifically because I loved August Clarke’s previous book, Metal From Heaven and consider it one of my all-time favorites. Unfortunately, this book is shorter, more derivative, and less thematically complete than that one. I liked some parts of it, but my enjoyment couldn’t get over my growing issues as I kept reading.
The story is about a cohort of artificially-created women who are entombed in a lavish nuclear bunker for the rich and powerful in the event of a Communist attack. It’s a very Fallout-inspired premise, and in fact I would call it a step further than inspired. This whole book could be a text log you find on the floor of a vault in that game.
My favorite parts were some of the soliloquies, especially the last ones near the end. When August Clarke lets rip on a freewheeling spin of someone’s psyche and politics his writing is at its best, and seems to come from a different book entirely. Metal From Heaven was more lyrical and fantastic, whereas the only futuristic things in this book are the girls themselves.
My single biggest issue is the length. It’s barely longer than a novella, so knowing the author I predicted everything that was going to follow from the premise because there wouldn’t be time to set up anything else in the limited page count. This doesn’t make the book bad per se, just transparent. What made it harder to read was how chapters are divided into “Before” and “After” timelines, which did little to increase the tension and a lot to stall out the pace. When an After chapter is so short it does nothing but set up a weak cliffhanger before the story returns to the past, that was a waste.
A site review isn’t the best place to talk about the themes of a work at great length, but there is one glaring omission I want to mention. As is typical of stories about artificial life going back to at least Frankenstein, there’s explicit comparison of the creator-created relationship to a father-child relationship. However, there’s nothing like that for any kind of sibling or sisterly relationship among the “specimens”. Is this because it would be weird when they start having romantic feelings for each other? I found it weirder to omit it, and just do the father-child thing like the creator and protagonist were in a vacuum.
By the end I liked and disliked it in equal parts. I didn’t find it particularly horrifying or romantic, and wish I could’ve rated it more highly.
I wanted this ARC specifically because I loved August Clarke’s previous book, Metal From Heaven and consider it one of my all-time favorites. Unfortunately, this book is shorter, more derivative, and less thematically complete than that one. I liked some parts of it, but my enjoyment couldn’t get over my growing issues as I kept reading.
The story is about a cohort of artificially-created women who are entombed in a lavish nuclear bunker for the rich and powerful in the event of a Communist attack. It’s a very Fallout-inspired premise, and in fact I would call it a step further than inspired. This whole book could be a text log you find on the floor of a vault in that game.
My favorite parts were some of the soliloquies, especially the last ones near the end. When August Clarke lets rip on a freewheeling spin of someone’s psyche and politics his writing is at its best, and seems to come from a different book entirely. Metal From Heaven was more lyrical and fantastic, whereas the only futuristic things in this book are the girls themselves.
My single biggest issue is the length. It’s barely longer than a novella, so knowing the author I predicted everything that was going to follow from the premise because there wouldn’t be time to set up anything else in the limited page count. This doesn’t make the book bad per se, just transparent. What made it harder to read was how chapters are divided into “Before” and “After” timelines, which did little to increase the tension and a lot to stall out the pace. When an After chapter is so short it does nothing but set up a weak cliffhanger before the story returns to the past, that was a waste.
A site review isn’t the best place to talk about the themes of a work at great length, but there is one glaring omission I want to mention. As is typical of stories about artificial life going back to at least Frankenstein, there’s explicit comparison of the creator-created relationship to a father-child relationship. However, there’s nothing like that for any kind of sibling or sisterly relationship among the “specimens”. Is this because it would be weird when they start having romantic feelings for each other? I found it weirder to omit it, and just do the father-child thing like the creator and protagonist were in a vacuum.
By the end I liked and disliked it in equal parts. I didn’t find it particularly horrifying or romantic, and wish I could’ve rated it more highly.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Six women created in a lab are immortally tasked with playing the roles of concierge, maintenance, and entertainment for a billionaire’s luxury doomsday bunker. It goes as well as you’d expect.
This is the classic girl-shaped robot-specimen-experiment story with the queer Communist twist you’d expect from August Clarke. It grapples with issues of humanity, womanhood, purpose, and property and satirizes the type of people who think a secret (but also commercially marketable!) bunker built on aesthetic comforts more than functionality will save them during the height of the Red Scare.
The character work is a highlight of this novel. We follow Hallelujah, a “woman” who, at the beginning of the novel, was basically born yesterday. Her naivete provides plenty of comedy, and the absurdity of her learning to be a person provides enough levity to make the darker parts of this novel more digestible. (Check the trigger warnings for this one.)
Hallelujah’s sister specimens are equally strange in their own ways. For each of them, there was at least one moment where I thought, “Man, it’d be so cool to read this story from her perspective. It’d be a totally different book.” But in that hypothetical I’d miss Hallelujah’s voice. And sometimes not knowing what a certain character is feeling/thinking makes the mystery that much more compelling or ominous. Ultimately, I liked the choice to make the perspective character the one specimen who genuinely wants to please the billionaires and the scientists. It made her transformation that much more significant.
The writing isn’t as dense as Clarke’s other standalone novel Metal From Heaven (you could read that as a positive or a negative, depending on your tastes), but it still has plenty to say and it says it with style. Clarke’s lush, signature prose shines during the more horror-tinged passages, but, as I’m sure you can guess, the real horror is what the humans are capable of, not what the slime mold maid monsters are doing to them in return. This book isn’t overly gory, except when it’s deserved, and the most unsettling moments are the things that happen off page, or the things that you think might be happening off page, or the things that you think might happen on page next. Clarke’s great at creating tension and dread.
This was everything I wanted it to be and exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re drawn to the description, you won’t be disappointed.
This is the classic girl-shaped robot-specimen-experiment story with the queer Communist twist you’d expect from August Clarke. It grapples with issues of humanity, womanhood, purpose, and property and satirizes the type of people who think a secret (but also commercially marketable!) bunker built on aesthetic comforts more than functionality will save them during the height of the Red Scare.
The character work is a highlight of this novel. We follow Hallelujah, a “woman” who, at the beginning of the novel, was basically born yesterday. Her naivete provides plenty of comedy, and the absurdity of her learning to be a person provides enough levity to make the darker parts of this novel more digestible. (Check the trigger warnings for this one.)
Hallelujah’s sister specimens are equally strange in their own ways. For each of them, there was at least one moment where I thought, “Man, it’d be so cool to read this story from her perspective. It’d be a totally different book.” But in that hypothetical I’d miss Hallelujah’s voice. And sometimes not knowing what a certain character is feeling/thinking makes the mystery that much more compelling or ominous. Ultimately, I liked the choice to make the perspective character the one specimen who genuinely wants to please the billionaires and the scientists. It made her transformation that much more significant.
The writing isn’t as dense as Clarke’s other standalone novel Metal From Heaven (you could read that as a positive or a negative, depending on your tastes), but it still has plenty to say and it says it with style. Clarke’s lush, signature prose shines during the more horror-tinged passages, but, as I’m sure you can guess, the real horror is what the humans are capable of, not what the slime mold maid monsters are doing to them in return. This book isn’t overly gory, except when it’s deserved, and the most unsettling moments are the things that happen off page, or the things that you think might be happening off page, or the things that you think might happen on page next. Clarke’s great at creating tension and dread.
This was everything I wanted it to be and exactly what it says on the tin. If you’re drawn to the description, you won’t be disappointed.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
(3.75🌟 rounded up)
Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC!
A satirical book that explores the ideas of "traditional values" in the face of doomsday. Would definitely recommend to fans of Fallout, as it has similar humour, plot points, and overall vibe.
This is one of those books that I feel I need to really sit with to truly understand the layers and parallels that are drawn. There is a lot in this book that is left unsaid and there's a lot that we aren't privy to, since our main character herself doesn't always grasp the underlying meaning of things.
The book follows Hallelujah, a specimen created to survive the end times as Communists threaten the American Dream™️ during the Cold War era. Hallelujah and her fellow specimens have taken years to get right, and they will be the new hosts of "The Felicity Complex": a luxury underground bunker for the elite.
The book moves between 'before' they start living in the bunker and 'after' they officially move in. Each of the girls are fashioned after some form of womanhood and femininity that Mr. Pink, the creator of the Complex, sees as the pure, traditional values that he wants to preserve in the bunker so they can survive long after the American Dream™️ has been crushed. Each of the character's personalities and priorities represents how these ideals of womanhood begin, and by the end of the book, they devolve into something else completely as they're forced to survive and are left waiting for their first residents.
I found the characters quite interesting, especially their development across the book. It also asks an interesting question of where specimen ends and human begins, especially as these characters take on their own personalities and thoughts that differ from the ideals they were created with.
I don't want to get too caught up in details, so I'll wrap up with saying that overall, this book holds a mirror to the development of the U.S. since the Cold War and the battle against 'the Communists' and represents various archetypes of 'traditional American values' well. I will note that the writing style is quite unique and might not be for everyone - it's quite unserious and often include quips and one-liners, but I think it fits the feel of the book quite well!
Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC!
A satirical book that explores the ideas of "traditional values" in the face of doomsday. Would definitely recommend to fans of Fallout, as it has similar humour, plot points, and overall vibe.
This is one of those books that I feel I need to really sit with to truly understand the layers and parallels that are drawn. There is a lot in this book that is left unsaid and there's a lot that we aren't privy to, since our main character herself doesn't always grasp the underlying meaning of things.
The book follows Hallelujah, a specimen created to survive the end times as Communists threaten the American Dream™️ during the Cold War era. Hallelujah and her fellow specimens have taken years to get right, and they will be the new hosts of "The Felicity Complex": a luxury underground bunker for the elite.
The book moves between 'before' they start living in the bunker and 'after' they officially move in. Each of the girls are fashioned after some form of womanhood and femininity that Mr. Pink, the creator of the Complex, sees as the pure, traditional values that he wants to preserve in the bunker so they can survive long after the American Dream™️ has been crushed. Each of the character's personalities and priorities represents how these ideals of womanhood begin, and by the end of the book, they devolve into something else completely as they're forced to survive and are left waiting for their first residents.
I found the characters quite interesting, especially their development across the book. It also asks an interesting question of where specimen ends and human begins, especially as these characters take on their own personalities and thoughts that differ from the ideals they were created with.
I don't want to get too caught up in details, so I'll wrap up with saying that overall, this book holds a mirror to the development of the U.S. since the Cold War and the battle against 'the Communists' and represents various archetypes of 'traditional American values' well. I will note that the writing style is quite unique and might not be for everyone - it's quite unserious and often include quips and one-liners, but I think it fits the feel of the book quite well!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Immediately weird, gay, and gory! Must be an August Clarke title!
I enjoyed Metal From Heaven but I really, really liked The Felicity Complex, and I’ll probably come to love it with more time to digest. It’s strange, fast-moving, laugh-out-loud funny (should we all be keeping husbands in bags??), and supremely violent, with that special blend of class-conscious, lesbian-tinged body horror that’s seemingly becoming Clarke’s signature.
It’s still fairly trippy, but less ambitious, and possibly relatedly, less inscrutable than Metal from Heaven. Although FMC Hallelujah is utterly bonkers, she’s still mostly coherent, and Clarke’s incredibly vivid writing makes it easy to visualize all the (literal) viscera of each successively-crazier event. From the bot-baby-making lab to the Brand-New Girl room to the final dinner show, The Felicity Complex would make an absolutely incredible film.
The wildest, and most surprising, thing about the book is that it’s not actually all that dark. If rich and powerful men had such access to and bodily control over female-presenting robots in the real world, it would be so, so much worse than this, even if much, much more dull. To that end, sensitive readers like me should be aware that while there’s a CW for SA, it’s actually completed, entirely on-page rape. (This distinction isn’t important to everyone but it is to me.) I normally try to avoid reading about both SA and rape, but this instance was tolerable for me because of how it’s written - pretty clinically, and at some distance - and because of an aftermath that’s equal parts cathartic and just plain funny. That’s no mean feat, and I can really see Clarke coming into their powers through this scene (to say nothing of the rest!).
The Felicity Complex cements August Clarke as an SFF powerhouse, and is not to be missed. I can’t wait to see what he writes next!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
I enjoyed Metal From Heaven but I really, really liked The Felicity Complex, and I’ll probably come to love it with more time to digest. It’s strange, fast-moving, laugh-out-loud funny (should we all be keeping husbands in bags??), and supremely violent, with that special blend of class-conscious, lesbian-tinged body horror that’s seemingly becoming Clarke’s signature.
It’s still fairly trippy, but less ambitious, and possibly relatedly, less inscrutable than Metal from Heaven. Although FMC Hallelujah is utterly bonkers, she’s still mostly coherent, and Clarke’s incredibly vivid writing makes it easy to visualize all the (literal) viscera of each successively-crazier event. From the bot-baby-making lab to the Brand-New Girl room to the final dinner show, The Felicity Complex would make an absolutely incredible film.
The wildest, and most surprising, thing about the book is that it’s not actually all that dark. If rich and powerful men had such access to and bodily control over female-presenting robots in the real world, it would be so, so much worse than this, even if much, much more dull. To that end, sensitive readers like me should be aware that while there’s a CW for SA, it’s actually completed, entirely on-page rape. (This distinction isn’t important to everyone but it is to me.) I normally try to avoid reading about both SA and rape, but this instance was tolerable for me because of how it’s written - pretty clinically, and at some distance - and because of an aftermath that’s equal parts cathartic and just plain funny. That’s no mean feat, and I can really see Clarke coming into their powers through this scene (to say nothing of the rest!).
The Felicity Complex cements August Clarke as an SFF powerhouse, and is not to be missed. I can’t wait to see what he writes next!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to August Clarke, Kensington Publishing | Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Felicity Complex is a dystopian sci-fi mixed with body horror. It follows Hallelujah and five other women in a dual timeline - ‘before’ in the 1970s and ‘after’ in the 2070s. However, Hallelujah and her friends aren’t normal women; they’re specimens. Created out of of Prima Materia by a mad scientist (Dr Younghusband) and privately funded by a creep (Mister Pink), the women are made to measure as maids, nurses, chefs, electricians, and general entertainers in a luxury Cold War bunker, built for the rich.
I really enjoyed the queer implications of the specimens and the general characterisation throughout the whole book. There was, however, a little confusion over how the specimens related to one another and others. Hallelujah sees Dr Younghusband as her creator and father, even lovingly referring to him as He at the end, but the specimens form romantic connections between themselves. Does she not consider them sisters? There is a discussion to be had on what societal values can be placed on artificial humans, I suppose.
The new characters introduced in the ‘after’ were so lovably hateable and very reminiscent of the billionaire ‘characters’ we have in the current world.
The pacing was a little slow to begin but not noticeably. The novel is fairly short and the pacing really picked up after approx. 40%. I really enjoyed the world-building and would have loved to have the book more fully fleshed out and extended past the ending.
Overall, I loved the concept but the execution wasn’t perfect. I would love to see this as a TV show and will definitely be reading more of Clarke’s backlist.
The Felicity Complex is a dystopian sci-fi mixed with body horror. It follows Hallelujah and five other women in a dual timeline - ‘before’ in the 1970s and ‘after’ in the 2070s. However, Hallelujah and her friends aren’t normal women; they’re specimens. Created out of of Prima Materia by a mad scientist (Dr Younghusband) and privately funded by a creep (Mister Pink), the women are made to measure as maids, nurses, chefs, electricians, and general entertainers in a luxury Cold War bunker, built for the rich.
I really enjoyed the queer implications of the specimens and the general characterisation throughout the whole book. There was, however, a little confusion over how the specimens related to one another and others. Hallelujah sees Dr Younghusband as her creator and father, even lovingly referring to him as He at the end, but the specimens form romantic connections between themselves. Does she not consider them sisters? There is a discussion to be had on what societal values can be placed on artificial humans, I suppose.
The new characters introduced in the ‘after’ were so lovably hateable and very reminiscent of the billionaire ‘characters’ we have in the current world.
The pacing was a little slow to begin but not noticeably. The novel is fairly short and the pacing really picked up after approx. 40%. I really enjoyed the world-building and would have loved to have the book more fully fleshed out and extended past the ending.
Overall, I loved the concept but the execution wasn’t perfect. I would love to see this as a TV show and will definitely be reading more of Clarke’s backlist.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
My favorite aspect of The Felicity Complex is also one of the things I loved about August Clarke's impressive debut novel Metal from Heaven: both have characters you come to love for all their complications and shades. But what Felicity Complex is missing is something that Metal from Heaven truly excelled at, which was a three-dimensional world for those characters to live in. The world of The Felicity Complex feels barely sketched in—from the laboratory the cast of characters largely comes from to the broader world of "Communists," bunker-loving millionaires, and promised annihilation. I think this was intentional, to keep a close, almost claustrophobic camera on the Felicity girls and the world that is claustrophobic by definition for them. But it didn't quite work for me and it left the story, particularly the ending, feeling incomplete.
[mild spoilers ahead]
Something else that Felicity Complex shares with Metal from Heaven is a sudden, violent turn at the story's conclusion—but to me it came seemingly out of nowhere in this book, to the point that I still don't really understand when things shifted or what the characters' intents were. It was a left turn that made the final fifth of the book disorienting and made it hard to care what was happening to everyone.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
[mild spoilers ahead]
Something else that Felicity Complex shares with Metal from Heaven is a sudden, violent turn at the story's conclusion—but to me it came seemingly out of nowhere in this book, to the point that I still don't really understand when things shifted or what the characters' intents were. It was a left turn that made the final fifth of the book disorienting and made it hard to care what was happening to everyone.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3.75
💣 ARC Review 🩻
In this dystopian satire, science has gotten to a point where we can produce human-like beings. They aren't robots, being made of skin and organs, and they can be trained to do whatever you may want them to do.
What better way to staff a luxury bomb shelter for the end of the world?! Staffed by these pseudo-women trained in elocution, dancing, medical, cooking, and able to perform *all* types of client satisfaction 😉 - what could go wrong?
This dystopia seems like a science fiction and thriller combo that keeps you turning the pages to find out what happens next.
Hallelujah was my favorite. She was so naive and just wanted to be the best she could be. She felt very Klara and the Sun to me (at the beginning of that book).
This book was such a happy surprise to have found. It was such a different dystopia. It was - far out. 😃 I definitely did not anticipate what ended up happening!
If you like the TV show The Dollhouse or the books Klara and the Sun, The Semplica Girl Diaries (the short story from Tenth of December) or I, Robot you may like this book.
Triggers: Violence, Death, Murder, Gore, Medical Content
💣 ARC Review 🩻
In this dystopian satire, science has gotten to a point where we can produce human-like beings. They aren't robots, being made of skin and organs, and they can be trained to do whatever you may want them to do.
What better way to staff a luxury bomb shelter for the end of the world?! Staffed by these pseudo-women trained in elocution, dancing, medical, cooking, and able to perform *all* types of client satisfaction 😉 - what could go wrong?
This dystopia seems like a science fiction and thriller combo that keeps you turning the pages to find out what happens next.
Hallelujah was my favorite. She was so naive and just wanted to be the best she could be. She felt very Klara and the Sun to me (at the beginning of that book).
This book was such a happy surprise to have found. It was such a different dystopia. It was - far out. 😃 I definitely did not anticipate what ended up happening!
If you like the TV show The Dollhouse or the books Klara and the Sun, The Semplica Girl Diaries (the short story from Tenth of December) or I, Robot you may like this book.
Triggers: Violence, Death, Murder, Gore, Medical Content
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
•ARC 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝘄•
[The Felicity Complex]
🔥 Release Date: [Jul 28 2026] 🔥
Thank you to Kensington Publishing, August Clarke, and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
★★★★☆
The Felicity Complex is such a wild, stylish ride. The bunker setting, retro futuristic vibe, and concept of engineered women raised to serve the ultra rich all come together in a way that’s both unsettling and darkly funny. August Clarke’s writing is sharp and immersive, and the premise hooked me right away.
I really liked how the story blends satire, horror, and character driven tension. Watching the women unravel, the cracks in their programming, and the increasingly unhinged behavior of the bunker’s “elite” guests all build into something weird in the best way. It’s unsettling, claustrophobic, and full of personality.
Things get a little chaotic toward the end, but the overall experience is so unique and entertaining. A creative, well executed story that fully commits to its concept.
[The Felicity Complex]
🔥 Release Date: [Jul 28 2026] 🔥
Thank you to Kensington Publishing, August Clarke, and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!
★★★★☆
The Felicity Complex is such a wild, stylish ride. The bunker setting, retro futuristic vibe, and concept of engineered women raised to serve the ultra rich all come together in a way that’s both unsettling and darkly funny. August Clarke’s writing is sharp and immersive, and the premise hooked me right away.
I really liked how the story blends satire, horror, and character driven tension. Watching the women unravel, the cracks in their programming, and the increasingly unhinged behavior of the bunker’s “elite” guests all build into something weird in the best way. It’s unsettling, claustrophobic, and full of personality.
Things get a little chaotic toward the end, but the overall experience is so unique and entertaining. A creative, well executed story that fully commits to its concept.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
4.5 happily rounded up!
*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.*
This is marvellous, and I have nothing clever to say about it. It is indeed a satire about womenhood, particularly the white feminine ideal/s of the 50s, with some explosive nature-vs-nurture thrown in and plenty of Eat The Rich. Hallelujah and her sisters were made in test tubes, and they might look human but on a biological level, I don’t know what they are.
So naturally, some idiot buys them in bulk to be the hostesses for his luxury nuclear bunker. Because of course.
Felicity Complex opens before the bunker, while Hallelujah et al are still in their lab, having tests run on them and being trained in the Ways of FemininityTM. With no regards to their own personalities, each of them are assigned a stereotype that they must then embody – Thumbelina is supposed to be ‘motherly’, Oklahoma is the ‘spirited country girl’, and so on. It’s patently ridiculous, as is their teacher’s – the one human woman they’ve ever met! – frustration with them; reading the passages where she’s snapping at them to be more ladylike, it’s impossible not to notice that she doesn’t explain what the hell that means, never mind what it means in practical terms. They just came out of giant tanks, ma’am! They have never been outside! Of course they can’t do this, not least because you’re a terrible teacher! And when the poor things do make it to the bunker, they’re given new names and freaking costumes and honestly I am amazed the murder didn’t start so much earlier.
If you’ve read clarke before, then you know his prose is feral and gorgeous and deeply, deliciously extravagant. Here in Felicity Complex it’s stripped of a lot of that decadence that I love, which is fitting because of the choice of protagonist (I’ll get to that in a sec) – but it’s still sharp and electric; the word that comes to me every time I think about it is neon. It feels more appropriate to sci fi than what we’ve seen of clarke before – their prose has always felt so fantastical to me, as magical as their fiction, but that wouldn’t have felt correct in this Cold War, mad science setting. That he changed the flavour of it to fit the story just proves, yet again, that they’re a genius not just with words but with language, and if you don’t understand the difference then I don’t know how to explain it to you.
CODE-SWITCHING. clarke code-switched for the shift in genres, and it’s so damn impressive.
But anyone who struggled with the second-person narration in Metal From Heaven need not fear; Felicity Complex is much easier to read, structurally. Written in third-person, the book is divided between BEFORE and AFTER chapters, and what slices before from after is something I’m not going to spoil for you. Hallelujah is our eyes and ears in this Cold War nightmare, and I can imagine plenty of readers are going to tear their hair out over her, because she’s a sweetheart but she is impossibly naive. It’s not being born in a vat that did it, because none of her sisters are as clueless as she is; none of the rest have gulped down the kool-aid the way she has. Hallelujah believes so hard in the bunker, in being a solace and comfort to billionaires hiding out from a nuclear apocalypse, and the dissonance between her earnestness and the reality of what’s going on is – wildly, brilliantly uncomfortable, impossible to ignore. This would be such a different book if Hallelujah was as clued-in as the reader is – still bleak, but in a far more boring way. I don’t think it would sizzle without Hallelujah’s cluelessness, without her ginormous heart and her desire to make everyone around her happy. She’s genuine – maybe the only genuine thing anywhere in the book, and there’s just something so brilliantly clever about that, in this story that’s all about artifice and hallucinated gender roles – that the only genuine thing/person here is the one who doesn’t understand how fake the rest of it is. Hallelujah’s earnestness is what underlines clarke’s thesis statement – maybe even what proves it?
I’m pretty sure I’m missing a lot of what clarke’s done here, that a lot of it’s going over my head. But the easily accessible part is still a wickedly sharp, incisive story that will rip your heart out and have your gorge clogging your throat (the surgery! the ninth girl! THE FOLDABLE MAN AND HIS BAG!!!!!!!!!!) It’s short and packs one hell of a punch, not a single word wasted; it feels like a grenade tossed into your brain. It’s not perfectly to my taste – the 50s aesthetic, the Cold War, the sci fi of it all is not what I prefer to read. But it’s objectively excellent, and I recommend it enthusiastically for anyone who wants a stomach-churning indictment of the madness that is all this gender role stuff.
Trigger warnings:
*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.*
This is marvellous, and I have nothing clever to say about it. It is indeed a satire about womenhood, particularly the white feminine ideal/s of the 50s, with some explosive nature-vs-nurture thrown in and plenty of Eat The Rich. Hallelujah and her sisters were made in test tubes, and they might look human but on a biological level, I don’t know what they are.
So naturally, some idiot buys them in bulk to be the hostesses for his luxury nuclear bunker. Because of course.
Felicity Complex opens before the bunker, while Hallelujah et al are still in their lab, having tests run on them and being trained in the Ways of FemininityTM. With no regards to their own personalities, each of them are assigned a stereotype that they must then embody – Thumbelina is supposed to be ‘motherly’, Oklahoma is the ‘spirited country girl’, and so on. It’s patently ridiculous, as is their teacher’s – the one human woman they’ve ever met! – frustration with them; reading the passages where she’s snapping at them to be more ladylike, it’s impossible not to notice that she doesn’t explain what the hell that means, never mind what it means in practical terms. They just came out of giant tanks, ma’am! They have never been outside! Of course they can’t do this, not least because you’re a terrible teacher! And when the poor things do make it to the bunker, they’re given new names and freaking costumes and honestly I am amazed the murder didn’t start so much earlier.
If you’ve read clarke before, then you know his prose is feral and gorgeous and deeply, deliciously extravagant. Here in Felicity Complex it’s stripped of a lot of that decadence that I love, which is fitting because of the choice of protagonist (I’ll get to that in a sec) – but it’s still sharp and electric; the word that comes to me every time I think about it is neon. It feels more appropriate to sci fi than what we’ve seen of clarke before – their prose has always felt so fantastical to me, as magical as their fiction, but that wouldn’t have felt correct in this Cold War, mad science setting. That he changed the flavour of it to fit the story just proves, yet again, that they’re a genius not just with words but with language, and if you don’t understand the difference then I don’t know how to explain it to you.
CODE-SWITCHING. clarke code-switched for the shift in genres, and it’s so damn impressive.
She snaps on a pair of gloves. Something very naughty about wearing gloves. Scientist drag.
But anyone who struggled with the second-person narration in Metal From Heaven need not fear; Felicity Complex is much easier to read, structurally. Written in third-person, the book is divided between BEFORE and AFTER chapters, and what slices before from after is something I’m not going to spoil for you. Hallelujah is our eyes and ears in this Cold War nightmare, and I can imagine plenty of readers are going to tear their hair out over her, because she’s a sweetheart but she is impossibly naive. It’s not being born in a vat that did it, because none of her sisters are as clueless as she is; none of the rest have gulped down the kool-aid the way she has. Hallelujah believes so hard in the bunker, in being a solace and comfort to billionaires hiding out from a nuclear apocalypse, and the dissonance between her earnestness and the reality of what’s going on is – wildly, brilliantly uncomfortable, impossible to ignore. This would be such a different book if Hallelujah was as clued-in as the reader is – still bleak, but in a far more boring way. I don’t think it would sizzle without Hallelujah’s cluelessness, without her ginormous heart and her desire to make everyone around her happy. She’s genuine – maybe the only genuine thing anywhere in the book, and there’s just something so brilliantly clever about that, in this story that’s all about artifice and hallucinated gender roles – that the only genuine thing/person here is the one who doesn’t understand how fake the rest of it is. Hallelujah’s earnestness is what underlines clarke’s thesis statement – maybe even what proves it?
It isn’t just a zoo for endangered iterations of docile womanhood. It isn’t a hiding place. It’s a home. It’s Hallelujah’s family home. She’s loved. She’s so loved.
I’m pretty sure I’m missing a lot of what clarke’s done here, that a lot of it’s going over my head. But the easily accessible part is still a wickedly sharp, incisive story that will rip your heart out and have your gorge clogging your throat (the surgery! the ninth girl! THE FOLDABLE MAN AND HIS BAG!!!!!!!!!!) It’s short and packs one hell of a punch, not a single word wasted; it feels like a grenade tossed into your brain. It’s not perfectly to my taste – the 50s aesthetic, the Cold War, the sci fi of it all is not what I prefer to read. But it’s objectively excellent, and I recommend it enthusiastically for anyone who wants a stomach-churning indictment of the madness that is all this gender role stuff.
Trigger warnings:
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
The Felicity Complex is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for the post-modern world...
What happens when you staff a Cold War apocalypse bunker with flesh-and-blood robots who dream of being real girls? The Felicity Complex asks and answers this question in a curious juxtaposition of beauty and blood.
Overtly lascivious in writing style and content, The Felicity Complex explores whether being a "real girl" means making sacrifices or molding an unfortunate situation into a fiction of one’s own creation. What if Frankenstein's monster was actually an angel?
"Nothing ever changes in the Felicity Complex," but everything is at stake when survival of the fittest will depend on who really controls the bunker.
Fans of Blake Crouch will devour The Felicity Complex with great aplomb.
Perfect for readers of fast-moving science fiction with a taste for the absurd.
A wild and vivid readalike for fans J. P. Delaney's The Perfect Wife.
What happens when you staff a Cold War apocalypse bunker with flesh-and-blood robots who dream of being real girls? The Felicity Complex asks and answers this question in a curious juxtaposition of beauty and blood.
Overtly lascivious in writing style and content, The Felicity Complex explores whether being a "real girl" means making sacrifices or molding an unfortunate situation into a fiction of one’s own creation. What if Frankenstein's monster was actually an angel?
"Nothing ever changes in the Felicity Complex," but everything is at stake when survival of the fittest will depend on who really controls the bunker.
Fans of Blake Crouch will devour The Felicity Complex with great aplomb.
Perfect for readers of fast-moving science fiction with a taste for the absurd.
A wild and vivid readalike for fans J. P. Delaney's The Perfect Wife.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC of The Felicity Complex by August Clarke.
I went for this one solely based on the 'Fallout' of it all. I have played all of the Fallout games, and love the mixing of satire and dark themes, so I thought The Felicity Complex would be right up my street!
Whilst I enjoyed the concept of the book, I found it difficult to love due to everything being seen through the eyes of Hallelujah, who is extremely naive and remains that way throughout the story.
Its a hot take, but I think The Felicity Complex is one of those books that (rarely) would make a better TV show than just a written story. I can imagine TV being able to bring more to life, and allow a viewer to see both Hallelujah's POV whilst making their own connections and opinions, whilst when read, it is hard to do with only Hal's POV.
With that said, I enjoyed the book just fine, and am glad I read it!
I went for this one solely based on the 'Fallout' of it all. I have played all of the Fallout games, and love the mixing of satire and dark themes, so I thought The Felicity Complex would be right up my street!
Whilst I enjoyed the concept of the book, I found it difficult to love due to everything being seen through the eyes of Hallelujah, who is extremely naive and remains that way throughout the story.
Its a hot take, but I think The Felicity Complex is one of those books that (rarely) would make a better TV show than just a written story. I can imagine TV being able to bring more to life, and allow a viewer to see both Hallelujah's POV whilst making their own connections and opinions, whilst when read, it is hard to do with only Hal's POV.
With that said, I enjoyed the book just fine, and am glad I read it!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thrilled to have received an ARC of this, I am a fan of everything Clarke has written and this is probably his most accessible work to date. It follows Hallelujah and a group of five other specimens that ‘resemble girls’ grown in a lab for the purpose of staffing a luxury fallout shelter to protect the wealthy and elite when the communists bomb America.
It examines what it means to be a woman through an incredibly trans lens which I really enjoyed. Clarke’s visceral writing is in top shape here with some really excellent depictions of body horror. It’s a deeply queer and trans story but the specimens aren’t human so if you’re hoping for a story about lived queer and trans experiences this isn’t the story that will do that.
It felt distinct from Clarke’s other works but also shows how he’s developed as a writer, the pacing feels well balanced. I had a great time reading this and I hope to see it do well on release!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.
It examines what it means to be a woman through an incredibly trans lens which I really enjoyed. Clarke’s visceral writing is in top shape here with some really excellent depictions of body horror. It’s a deeply queer and trans story but the specimens aren’t human so if you’re hoping for a story about lived queer and trans experiences this isn’t the story that will do that.
It felt distinct from Clarke’s other works but also shows how he’s developed as a writer, the pacing feels well balanced. I had a great time reading this and I hope to see it do well on release!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Felicity Complex is a very interesting take on dystopian sci-fi.
What happens if you create humanly lab-grown girls with hormones, the ideal "womanly" interests, dreams and personalities, put them in a bunker and make them work in hospitality for filthy rich people at the end of the world? - Lots of fun and not so fun stuff including murder and dancing.
It was really interesting to experience the scenario through the naive eyes of Hallelujah, her positive vibes and wish for harmony complements the dystopian setting. There were some unexpected twists and turns, loved the sapphic elements in the misogynistic environment.
I didn't expect the amount of social criticism and food for thought in that short read but was pleasantly surprised.
What happens if you create humanly lab-grown girls with hormones, the ideal "womanly" interests, dreams and personalities, put them in a bunker and make them work in hospitality for filthy rich people at the end of the world? - Lots of fun and not so fun stuff including murder and dancing.
It was really interesting to experience the scenario through the naive eyes of Hallelujah, her positive vibes and wish for harmony complements the dystopian setting. There were some unexpected twists and turns, loved the sapphic elements in the misogynistic environment.
I didn't expect the amount of social criticism and food for thought in that short read but was pleasantly surprised.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This genre isn't normally what I read however I do love dark comedy and satire. It was an interesting read and a great concept however for me I have to like characters and I didn't connect with any of them or particularly root for them which took away from it for me, but it's not to say I didn't find the characters interesting and want better for them in a way. The story took on a lot of important topics such as womanhood, what makes a woman? Politics, gender and identity, isolation, relationships etc. However I felt like there were things throughout that were initially explored and then not fully followed through in a way I expected. But I did enjoy reading the book and it was easy to get stuck into.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I don't even know how to describe this book. It was definitely interesting and I enjoyed the characters but there were so many unanswered questions that I was really distracted wondering exactly what the Felicity Girls were. I am not a fan of horror and I felt there was some aspect of "Cosmic horror" that I was missing. Also its a bit too gory for me. I dont know what type of reader that I would recommend this too. As far as the themes, it could have broad feminist appeal but you have to get through the vagueness of the world and the too graphic body horror.
I received an ARC of this work from Netgalley or my honest review.
I received an ARC of this work from Netgalley or my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The concept was cool, but the writing didn't really work for me. I found it a bit annoying. It often felt very repetitive, like it followed the same basic sentence patterns over and over again. Maybe it's just me. Overall, I'm not a fan of this book and didn't really enjoy it. A lot of the lore and backstory are delivered through dialogue rather than narration, and sometimes the characters talk for too long, which made it hard for me to stay engaged with the story. Like I didn't want to hear them explaining.
May 22, 2026
This was really fun. Loved the uncanny vibe of the specimen and their motivations. Loved the personas each specimen had, the “good old American values”, and the way this slowly turned into a horror novel. Like wtaf was happening at the end there, freaky I adored it.
I’m continually impressed by how Clarke manages to leave so much unwritten, like just alludes to traits or plot lines and does it so well that it feels perfectly developed. Definitely less of a developed plot than metal from heaven but great nonetheless
I’m continually impressed by how Clarke manages to leave so much unwritten, like just alludes to traits or plot lines and does it so well that it feels perfectly developed. Definitely less of a developed plot than metal from heaven but great nonetheless
Read
March 24, 2026Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc.
Sci fi is not a genre I’m super familiar with but I was lured in with the comparison to Fallout. I enjoyed it!
For readers interested in:
👸 questioning gender and gender roles - what makes a woman? what makes us human?
🫂 themes of trauma, isolation and exploitation
🪓 violence (check trigger warnings)
🧪 science and capitalism
🤪 dark satire
👩❤️💋👩 sapphic vibes
Sci fi is not a genre I’m super familiar with but I was lured in with the comparison to Fallout. I enjoyed it!
For readers interested in:
👸 questioning gender and gender roles - what makes a woman? what makes us human?
🫂 themes of trauma, isolation and exploitation
🪓 violence (check trigger warnings)
🧪 science and capitalism
🤪 dark satire
👩❤️💋👩 sapphic vibes
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I knew this was a winner about ten pages in. This is a biting satire that I read in one sitting. It was funny and cathartic to read as a woman. This is compared to Annie Bot, but I believe this novel goes where Annie Bot goes and then goes further. This is a searing repudiation of patriarchy and the tech bros who plan to take over the world. I am excited to read more from this author!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Weird as hell but I think I liked it a lot. I did not love it as much as Clarke's other books, but it still was fantastically written and I loved the way the girls were characterized. I wish it had been longer so it had more time to develop its themes and the switches between before and after didn't work for me, but otherwise it was really good. August Clarke's prose always blows me away, this book was very reminiscent of Metal From Heaven in that way.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This book had a really interesting premise and so much potential but it never really came together. It’s a pretty easy read but has long lulls. When I read the synopsis I was excited to pick it up and maybe thats where my disappointment came from, I went in with to my expected I guess. I would be interested in more of this author’s work though, just because how interesting the background and ideas pf this story were.
Thank you the NetGalley for this ARC.
Thank you the NetGalley for this ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
August Clarke has such a sharp, biting way with words, and I will absolutely read anything they write. And when that anything is a satirical Cold War satire (the comparisons to Fallout and Ex Machina are very apt), well, to say this was a highly anticipated read would be understating things.
The Felicity Complex is about six lab-grown women who are meant to be hostesses for an underground bunker for the elite. Except for this is one weird fucking bunker, with lots of weird fucking people. Written with wry humour throughout, The Felicity Complex isn't afraid to ask questions on things like gender and autonomy and also isn't afraid to get very, very gory - this has a fair amount of body horror in its satirical dystopia.
I loved the relationships between the six "specimens," I loved the dual timelines and the confusion/intrigue that obviously causes, and I loved how weird and grotesque this story was. But most of all, I loved the writing. While the style of writing did make it hard to fully engage with the characters, it was fitting for the narrative voice, and there were some turns of phrase that just made me so, so happy.
Truly an unhinged read.
Thank you to the publisher, Erewhon Books, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
The Felicity Complex is about six lab-grown women who are meant to be hostesses for an underground bunker for the elite. Except for this is one weird fucking bunker, with lots of weird fucking people. Written with wry humour throughout, The Felicity Complex isn't afraid to ask questions on things like gender and autonomy and also isn't afraid to get very, very gory - this has a fair amount of body horror in its satirical dystopia.
I loved the relationships between the six "specimens," I loved the dual timelines and the confusion/intrigue that obviously causes, and I loved how weird and grotesque this story was. But most of all, I loved the writing. While the style of writing did make it hard to fully engage with the characters, it was fitting for the narrative voice, and there were some turns of phrase that just made me so, so happy.
Truly an unhinged read.
Thank you to the publisher, Erewhon Books, and to NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
banger as always; genuinely made me go 'ew' at some points which is impressive
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This was surprisingly easy to read. A little frightening, you say? Only if you're not ready! And that's what this book is getting at. August Clarke does it again.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I loved Metal from heaven. This didn’t quite grab me…. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews