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Carrying
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • Golden Poppy Book Award Winner
"A banger of a trans feminist body horror comedy."—Caro Claire Burke, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Yesteryear
She’s serving.
She’s eating.
She’s . . . Carrying.
In this electrifying horror debut that’s equal parts funny and harrowing, a stealth trans woman desperate to maintain her picture-perfect life discovers that she’s seemingly—impossibly—pregnant.
Everything Martha’s wanted, she’s made for herself.
Meet perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her surprising, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing rapidly outside of her control and her choices dwindling, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
"A banger of a trans feminist body horror comedy."—Caro Claire Burke, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Yesteryear
She’s serving.
She’s eating.
She’s . . . Carrying.
In this electrifying horror debut that’s equal parts funny and harrowing, a stealth trans woman desperate to maintain her picture-perfect life discovers that she’s seemingly—impossibly—pregnant.
Everything Martha’s wanted, she’s made for herself.
Meet perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her surprising, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing rapidly outside of her control and her choices dwindling, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 430 reviews
April 13, 2026
“You’re too cunt to die” is my favorite quote from a book
Review of advance copy
You know how The Rocky Horror Picture Show is secretly a horror movie for homophobes? Where the just-engaged happy hetero couple stumbles upon a haunted house that seduces them into (the horror!) a bisexual cross-dressing alien madness?
In the same way, Carrying is a horror story for transphobes, where the fantasy of a perfect straight-girl wife—think green juice and Pilates, the best boob job money can buy, and to top it all off, a soon-to-be mother—is infiltrated by the reality of trans-ness. “A trans woman, pregnant?” thinks the transphobe, “The horror!” Well, it just so happens that we at Aardvark love giving nightmares to transphobes.
Not to mention, we love ourselves some hot girl lit. The crazy downward spiral, the stakes raised so damn high that we’re certain this time, finally, things have been pushed the farthest they can go…only to have our jaws drop so far they’re practically unhinged from our faces. Because reader, things can always be pushed farther.
In the same way, Carrying is a horror story for transphobes, where the fantasy of a perfect straight-girl wife—think green juice and Pilates, the best boob job money can buy, and to top it all off, a soon-to-be mother—is infiltrated by the reality of trans-ness. “A trans woman, pregnant?” thinks the transphobe, “The horror!” Well, it just so happens that we at Aardvark love giving nightmares to transphobes.
Not to mention, we love ourselves some hot girl lit. The crazy downward spiral, the stakes raised so damn high that we’re certain this time, finally, things have been pushed the farthest they can go…only to have our jaws drop so far they’re practically unhinged from our faces. Because reader, things can always be pushed farther.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
wow wow wow! i'm just now realizing this is a debut?! Samantha Josephs i've got my eye on you. if you're a fan of "weird girl" horror or lit fic this is for you. Carrying is by far the most original, completely unhinged book i've read recently, & to say it's a lot is an understatement. at no point did Carrying have any chill—it goes from crazy to crazier by the end.
she did what i needed her to do when i picked her up. i laughed, i cringed, i read some parts of this peeking through my fingers while saying "oh no pls don't do thaaaat!" i really enjoyed how the author was able to mix body horror, nasty pregnancy horror (the more pregnancy horror i read, the more i don't want kids) & social commentary together while still finding a way to make it comedic.
i PROMISE i am not typically one of those girls that's like "i HaTe AlL MeN blehh", i dislike us all equally, but why is it always a man that has the audacity to tell a woman how to live her life & what to do with our bodies??? i'm talking to you LEON. ooooHHHHH i despised this man & how dare Samantha make me take his side later on in the book!? Leon was so caught up in having a soccer team family that he had ZERO sympathy for Martha & her wellbeing. it felt like every time he was on pg he just walked around dry humping Martha's leg begging "give me a baby, give me a baby, give me a baby!" SIR CAN MY GIRL RECUPERATE?! she is suffering from a mysterious illness can you leave her alone, now is not the time?! i hate to say it, but his reaction to her “treatments” was valid. ugh, what else was he supposed to do?? how else does one react to something like that?
where the story lost me was maybe the last 20% of the book. it goes completely off the rails & not in a good way in my opinion. the ending is just too ridiculous that i could not take it seriously at all. it went from 100-1,000,000 real fast... STOP IT.
another thing that kind of got under my skin was the half explanations...we find out HOW Martha was able to get pregnant but we don't find out how she got sick or like a firm confirmation of what exactly it is? it seems like she got pregnant & sick at the same time, so i thought it was connected but then we find out they're not? HOW WHEN WHERE & WHY does Bruce find these so called cures...GASOLINE HELLLOOOOO? is the explanation in the room with us? how were these treatments not affecting the baby while in the womb like at all?! i don't always need everything spelled out for me but i do think these are important questions? for these reasons i've settled on a 3.25 rounded down for gr.
it's still a fun wildly entertaining read & i definitely recommend to anyone who thinks it sounds even a little bit interesting — there's a certain part in this that gave Frankenstein vibes, but make it freaky iykyk. i honestly can't wait to see what else Samantha Josephs cooks up for us in the future.
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review
she did what i needed her to do when i picked her up. i laughed, i cringed, i read some parts of this peeking through my fingers while saying "oh no pls don't do thaaaat!" i really enjoyed how the author was able to mix body horror, nasty pregnancy horror (the more pregnancy horror i read, the more i don't want kids) & social commentary together while still finding a way to make it comedic.
i PROMISE i am not typically one of those girls that's like "i HaTe AlL MeN blehh", i dislike us all equally, but why is it always a man that has the audacity to tell a woman how to live her life & what to do with our bodies??? i'm talking to you LEON. ooooHHHHH i despised this man & how dare Samantha make me take his side later on in the book!? Leon was so caught up in having a soccer team family that he had ZERO sympathy for Martha & her wellbeing. it felt like every time he was on pg he just walked around dry humping Martha's leg begging "give me a baby, give me a baby, give me a baby!" SIR CAN MY GIRL RECUPERATE?! she is suffering from a mysterious illness can you leave her alone, now is not the time?! i hate to say it, but his reaction to her “treatments” was valid. ugh, what else was he supposed to do?? how else does one react to something like that?
where the story lost me was maybe the last 20% of the book. it goes completely off the rails & not in a good way in my opinion. the ending is just too ridiculous that i could not take it seriously at all. it went from 100-1,000,000 real fast... STOP IT.
another thing that kind of got under my skin was the half explanations...we find out HOW Martha was able to get pregnant but we don't find out how she got sick or like a firm confirmation of what exactly it is? it seems like she got pregnant & sick at the same time, so i thought it was connected but then we find out they're not? HOW WHEN WHERE & WHY does Bruce find these so called cures...GASOLINE HELLLOOOOO? is the explanation in the room with us? how were these treatments not affecting the baby while in the womb like at all?! i don't always need everything spelled out for me but i do think these are important questions? for these reasons i've settled on a 3.25 rounded down for gr.
it's still a fun wildly entertaining read & i definitely recommend to anyone who thinks it sounds even a little bit interesting — there's a certain part in this that gave Frankenstein vibes, but make it freaky iykyk. i honestly can't wait to see what else Samantha Josephs cooks up for us in the future.
Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review
October 8, 2026
yesteryear for gay people
October 19, 2026
This was a sharp, biting, and stressful read! The writing reminded me of Boy Parts by Eliza Clark and Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth which I loved.
There were a few character beats that were a bit clunky, and I thought this was going to have way more body horror based on a few reviews I’ve seen and I thought it was leading up to a massive confrontation/unhinged conclusion (this is solidly a literary character study and was a bit underwhelming in the end) but I still really liked it and flew through it!
There were a few character beats that were a bit clunky, and I thought this was going to have way more body horror based on a few reviews I’ve seen and I thought it was leading up to a massive confrontation/unhinged conclusion (this is solidly a literary character study and was a bit underwhelming in the end) but I still really liked it and flew through it!
October 8, 2026
This horror-comedy is MAGA’s worst nightmare and I absolutely loved it! Engrossing, totally unique, with a social commentary to boot—this book is body-horror at its best. The audiobook narration by Christine Rose Schermerhorn is absolutely incredible! My only regret is that I didn’t know about this book until the pub day this past Tuesday. Samantha Josephs, you have a fan in me!
September 23, 2026
Most unhinged book of the year. Not for everyone. I laughed my ass off and loved it though. Audio was 🔥
RTC
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
RTC
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
September 3, 2026
Too cunt to die 💅🏼
October 11, 2026
This was absolutely insane and I never wanted it to end. I think one minute of this audiobook would fully send your conservative granny into a coma… like if you played it outside Capitol Hill I think it would probably be enough to finally put Mitch McConnell in the grave. (Put an end to that motherfuckers eternity leave.) Anyways, I ate this up like a raw, rancid chicken.
May 17, 2026
5 ⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC!!
In the words of Martha, the main character of this lovely trans body horror, she is mega cunt. She is super cunt. She is so cunt, that she is pregnant. She is a pregnant trans woman, and she will do ANYTHING it takes to have this baby. Oh… and she has a craving for spoiled meat.
Trans body horror will always have a special place in my heart, because being in the wrong body is pretty fucking horrific. Even though Martha has her faults, like roping her doctor best friend in on her schemes, and being a bit judgmental, I think we can all relate to her anxieties over having full control of her life. We see the good & bad sides of her, and that makes me like this story even more. Dealing with body dysmorphia and missing out on motherhood can make anyone feel bitchy and insane, while also feeling ooey gooey inside about finally having a mini you.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC!!
In the words of Martha, the main character of this lovely trans body horror, she is mega cunt. She is super cunt. She is so cunt, that she is pregnant. She is a pregnant trans woman, and she will do ANYTHING it takes to have this baby. Oh… and she has a craving for spoiled meat.
Trans body horror will always have a special place in my heart, because being in the wrong body is pretty fucking horrific. Even though Martha has her faults, like roping her doctor best friend in on her schemes, and being a bit judgmental, I think we can all relate to her anxieties over having full control of her life. We see the good & bad sides of her, and that makes me like this story even more. Dealing with body dysmorphia and missing out on motherhood can make anyone feel bitchy and insane, while also feeling ooey gooey inside about finally having a mini you.
October 22, 2026
Carrying opens in an LA butcher shop. Our heroine, Martha, is “a vision in a light blue wrap dress and just the right amount of makeup for a happily married thirty-nine-year-old in Brentwood.” At the counter, Martha orders “two pounds of bone-in skin-on chicken breast,” a quarter pound beef liver, and pigs blood (for “an old family recipe”).
Back home, Martha puts the chicken in the oven, takes the beef liver into the master bath, and stages a miscarriage as her husband Leon and daughter-in-law Enid pull into the garage. A necessary if painful scene in her Academy-worthy performance as dream wife.
Martha is trans, and she is “next-level stealth.” Nobody knows—not Leon, not his family, no one.
”She makes life so easy for Leon, so beautiful, so delicious. That’s the deal. She cooks, cleans, does school pickups, keeps her body tight, and has sex whenever he wants. She loves every second of it. Other women who bristle in the housewife role, finding it lonely or unstimulating, are spoiled brats. No stupid boring job and your sole purpose is making everything lovely? That’s the peak of human existence, Shangra-La-Di-Da every day.”
Until, one day, the pregnancy test Leon thrusts upon her comes up positive…
Carrying’s premise is delectable. A trans pregnancy novel probably couldn’t not be body horror—but what other body-horror premise is also such pure, impossible wish fulfillment?
Samantha Joseph takes her great setup and delivers. She finds just the right wry, defiant, half-heartbroken tone, and expands her premise in a way that’s somehow both bonkers and elegant. The novel is disgusting, but like only the best body horror, that disgust is viscerally thrilling—in the true sense of the adjective.
Martha’s desperation and glee and fear and glory, her web of lies and calculating bitterness, her envy and anxiety and protectiveness and real, profound love and care, come across so vividly, so messy and real; and yet, the story is understated in its way, reserving its excesses for its squeamish-absurd horror tableaus, serving psych-novel realism against a seethingly mundane vision of SoCal suburbia.
There is plenty to say, I’m sure, about what this novel means, what it says, how it relates to trans life in Trump’s America and the construction of femininity and the inescapable, contested roles of “wife” and “husband” that so many of us have no choice but to accept or defy or, one way or another, wrestle into submission.
But I’m not that interested in the novel’s social relevance. It’s the mood that got me. The novel brings together two modes of horror—the anxious, suppressed horror of an undiscovered secret and the visceral, embodied horror of living in a body at the mercy of modern medicine, which, despite being obviously preferable to the mercy of unmediated fate and uncomprehended microbiology that it’s replaced, is inevitably a nightmare of pain and confusion—the total submission of the most intimate reaches of our bodies to forces entirely outside our control.
Carrying’s obvious analogues, at least in my own limited experience of contemporary culture, are recent feminist arthouse body-horror spectacles: The Substance (2024), with its spectacular, sickening prosthetic gore set against the uncanny valley eroticism of Margaret Qualley’s equally synthetic breasts (“Unfortunately there is no magic boob potion, so we had to glue those on,” Qualley told The Sunday Times). Or the Palm d’Or-winning Titane (2021), whose murderous heroine is impregnated with a machine-baby by a Cadillac, if I recall correctly (the film came particularly to mind during one of Carrying’s wildest scenes, involving anal sex with the nozzle of a full can of gasoline).
What any of those movies—what Carrying—really mean or say eludes me. I guess they are an instinctive, and instinctively appropriate, response to modern life and the sacrifices it demands of us in exchange for a shot at our wildest dreams—or just at survival.
Carrying felt, to me, perfectly written—like every sentence, joke, rant, or scene was exactly right for the story it was trying to tell, however insane and disgusting that story might be.
This review is also published in full at Scorpion Review.
Back home, Martha puts the chicken in the oven, takes the beef liver into the master bath, and stages a miscarriage as her husband Leon and daughter-in-law Enid pull into the garage. A necessary if painful scene in her Academy-worthy performance as dream wife.
Martha is trans, and she is “next-level stealth.” Nobody knows—not Leon, not his family, no one.
”She makes life so easy for Leon, so beautiful, so delicious. That’s the deal. She cooks, cleans, does school pickups, keeps her body tight, and has sex whenever he wants. She loves every second of it. Other women who bristle in the housewife role, finding it lonely or unstimulating, are spoiled brats. No stupid boring job and your sole purpose is making everything lovely? That’s the peak of human existence, Shangra-La-Di-Da every day.”
Until, one day, the pregnancy test Leon thrusts upon her comes up positive…
Carrying’s premise is delectable. A trans pregnancy novel probably couldn’t not be body horror—but what other body-horror premise is also such pure, impossible wish fulfillment?
Samantha Joseph takes her great setup and delivers. She finds just the right wry, defiant, half-heartbroken tone, and expands her premise in a way that’s somehow both bonkers and elegant. The novel is disgusting, but like only the best body horror, that disgust is viscerally thrilling—in the true sense of the adjective.
Martha’s desperation and glee and fear and glory, her web of lies and calculating bitterness, her envy and anxiety and protectiveness and real, profound love and care, come across so vividly, so messy and real; and yet, the story is understated in its way, reserving its excesses for its squeamish-absurd horror tableaus, serving psych-novel realism against a seethingly mundane vision of SoCal suburbia.
There is plenty to say, I’m sure, about what this novel means, what it says, how it relates to trans life in Trump’s America and the construction of femininity and the inescapable, contested roles of “wife” and “husband” that so many of us have no choice but to accept or defy or, one way or another, wrestle into submission.
But I’m not that interested in the novel’s social relevance. It’s the mood that got me. The novel brings together two modes of horror—the anxious, suppressed horror of an undiscovered secret and the visceral, embodied horror of living in a body at the mercy of modern medicine, which, despite being obviously preferable to the mercy of unmediated fate and uncomprehended microbiology that it’s replaced, is inevitably a nightmare of pain and confusion—the total submission of the most intimate reaches of our bodies to forces entirely outside our control.
Carrying’s obvious analogues, at least in my own limited experience of contemporary culture, are recent feminist arthouse body-horror spectacles: The Substance (2024), with its spectacular, sickening prosthetic gore set against the uncanny valley eroticism of Margaret Qualley’s equally synthetic breasts (“Unfortunately there is no magic boob potion, so we had to glue those on,” Qualley told The Sunday Times). Or the Palm d’Or-winning Titane (2021), whose murderous heroine is impregnated with a machine-baby by a Cadillac, if I recall correctly (the film came particularly to mind during one of Carrying’s wildest scenes, involving anal sex with the nozzle of a full can of gasoline).
What any of those movies—what Carrying—really mean or say eludes me. I guess they are an instinctive, and instinctively appropriate, response to modern life and the sacrifices it demands of us in exchange for a shot at our wildest dreams—or just at survival.
Carrying felt, to me, perfectly written—like every sentence, joke, rant, or scene was exactly right for the story it was trying to tell, however insane and disgusting that story might be.
This review is also published in full at Scorpion Review.
October 7, 2026
Thanks to @prhaudio, I listened to the audiobook version of this book. The narration was 5 stars.
As for the book, it is utterly unhinged, and I mean that as a compliment. Ms. Josephs did an incredible job taking everything motherhood is supposed to be and turning it inside out. I love Martha and loathed her husband. This is an insane roller coaster ride and even though I was freaked out, I didn't want it to stop. I was left unsatisfied in the sense that I had burning questions that were never answered. If they were about inconsequential plot points, I would mind, but the plots depended on these things.
As for the book, it is utterly unhinged, and I mean that as a compliment. Ms. Josephs did an incredible job taking everything motherhood is supposed to be and turning it inside out. I love Martha and loathed her husband. This is an insane roller coaster ride and even though I was freaked out, I didn't want it to stop. I was left unsatisfied in the sense that I had burning questions that were never answered. If they were about inconsequential plot points, I would mind, but the plots depended on these things.
October 27, 2026
Carrying is the 2026 debut novel of Samantha Josephs, a trans woman and semiretired drag queen from New York. The Library of Congress files it under body horror fiction (stories of flesh changing against its owner’s wishes) plus transgender fiction. I call it wishful sci-fi.
The setting is Brentwood, a wealthy district of Los Angeles. Martha, thirty-nine, a housewife there, is trans. She lives “stealth,” the term for keeping that history undisclosed. Her husband Leon, a kind forty-six-year-old widower, takes her for a woman born female. So does his eleven-year-old daughter Enid. So do the school mothers. Only Roger, her gynecologist and the one friend she kept from her earlier life, knows. I did not detect too much in the book about the morality of the choice not to disclose this rather significant detail. But that's clearly not the point.
When Leon pushes for a baby, Martha stages a miscarriage with beef liver and pig’s blood. Then her own body turns strange, with spoiled flavors, double vision, migraines, until a TikTok sends her to a half-past-three-in-the-morning meeting of strangers eating rotten chicken as medicine.
Josephs hands Martha a cruel eye. The cruelty entertains. In the school pickup line Martha prescribes procedures to strangers, a retinoid routine for one mother, a deep plane facelift for another. She enjoys the habit as a soothing game. The opening chapters stage the miscarriage like a film set. She places the panties, reconsiders their angle, rejects corn syrup as too Halloween. She has faked a monthly period for years, with a pricked finger, a menstrual cup. The performance has rehearsal behind it.
The title names the habit. In ballroom, the competitive pageant culture of queer communities, trans ones included, to carry is to perform so extravagantly the competition evaporates. The title has a second sense, revealed in the middle chapters.
Josephs keeps the medicine unsettled. The meeting group diagnoses Martha with ROND, rapid-onset nutrient deficiency, an invented condition. This being California, members blame microplastics, 5G signals, modern life. Martha’s own doctors return normal tests. One floats psychosomatic illness, then adds that decades of hormone therapy are little studied. The illness turns out to be totally different and absolutely biological.
Martha’s invented rival, the Imaginary Fertile Woman, a younger, fruitful stranger she pictures replacing her, returns in new forms until the device thins. The ballroom compliment “cunt,” praise for flawless femininity, appears so often that the praise thins too. In the final third wit gives way to shouting. The closing chapters handle consequence lightly. The sex is graphic, slurs are plentiful, one chapter recounts a rape.
Carrying brings more nerve than nuance but even that ends up diluted. A well written interesting premise that isn't carried to term and gets lost to too many directions, flashbacks, thoughts, and asides that are left undeveloped. Chicken leftover horror? WTF?
❤️ 🇮🇱
The setting is Brentwood, a wealthy district of Los Angeles. Martha, thirty-nine, a housewife there, is trans. She lives “stealth,” the term for keeping that history undisclosed. Her husband Leon, a kind forty-six-year-old widower, takes her for a woman born female. So does his eleven-year-old daughter Enid. So do the school mothers. Only Roger, her gynecologist and the one friend she kept from her earlier life, knows. I did not detect too much in the book about the morality of the choice not to disclose this rather significant detail. But that's clearly not the point.
When Leon pushes for a baby, Martha stages a miscarriage with beef liver and pig’s blood. Then her own body turns strange, with spoiled flavors, double vision, migraines, until a TikTok sends her to a half-past-three-in-the-morning meeting of strangers eating rotten chicken as medicine.
Josephs hands Martha a cruel eye. The cruelty entertains. In the school pickup line Martha prescribes procedures to strangers, a retinoid routine for one mother, a deep plane facelift for another. She enjoys the habit as a soothing game. The opening chapters stage the miscarriage like a film set. She places the panties, reconsiders their angle, rejects corn syrup as too Halloween. She has faked a monthly period for years, with a pricked finger, a menstrual cup. The performance has rehearsal behind it.
The title names the habit. In ballroom, the competitive pageant culture of queer communities, trans ones included, to carry is to perform so extravagantly the competition evaporates. The title has a second sense, revealed in the middle chapters.
Josephs keeps the medicine unsettled. The meeting group diagnoses Martha with ROND, rapid-onset nutrient deficiency, an invented condition. This being California, members blame microplastics, 5G signals, modern life. Martha’s own doctors return normal tests. One floats psychosomatic illness, then adds that decades of hormone therapy are little studied. The illness turns out to be totally different and absolutely biological.
Martha’s invented rival, the Imaginary Fertile Woman, a younger, fruitful stranger she pictures replacing her, returns in new forms until the device thins. The ballroom compliment “cunt,” praise for flawless femininity, appears so often that the praise thins too. In the final third wit gives way to shouting. The closing chapters handle consequence lightly. The sex is graphic, slurs are plentiful, one chapter recounts a rape.
Carrying brings more nerve than nuance but even that ends up diluted. A well written interesting premise that isn't carried to term and gets lost to too many directions, flashbacks, thoughts, and asides that are left undeveloped. Chicken leftover horror? WTF?
❤️ 🇮🇱
October 9, 2026
It’s very easy for me to say this: a new queer classic.
Brilliantly funny, extremely unhinged, smart, ridiculous, and will hold your attention in a vice grip for every page. An original take on the body horror genre with The Substance-esque freakiness (although I’d argue this one goes further and in a more interesting direction). Comedy is very difficult to do but Samantha Josephs has a clear vision with vibrant characters and a quipiness that usually is only reserved for Good Judy’s. Beyond the comedy and the body extremism, lies a smart narrative that subverts transphobic thinking and gives the trans main character complete control. There’s a lot here and it’s so nice to read a book that has something to say and is completely entertaining.
A new hall of famer in the “She Did Nothing Wrong” universe.
Brilliantly funny, extremely unhinged, smart, ridiculous, and will hold your attention in a vice grip for every page. An original take on the body horror genre with The Substance-esque freakiness (although I’d argue this one goes further and in a more interesting direction). Comedy is very difficult to do but Samantha Josephs has a clear vision with vibrant characters and a quipiness that usually is only reserved for Good Judy’s. Beyond the comedy and the body extremism, lies a smart narrative that subverts transphobic thinking and gives the trans main character complete control. There’s a lot here and it’s so nice to read a book that has something to say and is completely entertaining.
A new hall of famer in the “She Did Nothing Wrong” universe.
October 17, 2026
"Because Martha didn’t just need to pass; she needed to be hot, so hot that no man could deny her. She had to diet and work out and carve herself up for the attention of men who still didn’t care if she lived or died."
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book was published in the US by G.P. Putnam's Sons on October 6th, 2026.
This is an absolutely unhinged book. I was so weirded out and grossed out the entire time I was reading it, but somehow I finished it both in awe and completely in love with it. Samantha Josephs has created something really special.
Carrying follows Martha, a 39-year-old stealth trans woman whose carefully constructed life as a picture-perfect housewife begins unraveling when a mysterious illness awakens grotesque new appetites and leaves her impossibly pregnant.
Audacious, irreverent, and deliciously camp, Josephs blends grotesque body horror with razor-sharp satire to interrogate the violent demands of cisheteronormative womanhood. Through Martha's impossible pregnancy and increasingly monstrous transformation, Josephs exposes how beauty, desirability, reproductive capacity, and proximity to men become measures of feminine legitimacy and survival.
And Martha herself? Gloriously vain, sharp-tongued, profoundly vulnerable, and frequently insufferable. She's internalized the very patriarchal beauty standards and systems of transmisogyny that threaten her survival, wielding her femininity as both armor and a weapon against other women. She's deeply human in all her contradictions, simultaneously the architect and prisoner of her own performance, and ultimately impossible not to root for.
Beneath all the bodily fluids, rotting flesh, and increasingly outrageous absurdity is a surprisingly tender exploration of trans motherhood, bodily autonomy, and the precariousness of safety achieved through secrecy and assimilation. Carrying asks what becomes possible when a woman refuses to sacrifice her body, her autonomy, or her future to remain palatable to the people who claim to love her.
I'm so glad this book ends where it does for Martha. This is a beautiful, if extraordinarily gory, story of trans motherhood, transformation, and liberation. You'll be better off for giving it a chance.
📖 Read this if you love: Transgressive queer fiction full of grotesque body horror; morally complicated and deeply flawed transfemme protagonists; explorations of trans embodiment, reproductive autonomy, and the violent expectations of womanhood; or The Substance.
🔑 Key Themes: Trans Motherhood and Autonomy, Gender Performativity and Legitimacy, Transmisogyny, Patriarchal Beauty Standards and the Male Gaze, Passing and the Politics of Assimilation, Survival and Radical Reinvention.
Content / Trigger Warnings: Blood (severe), Miscarriage (severe), Car Accident (severe), Sexual Content (severe), Suicidal Thoughts (severe), Medical Content (severe), Pregnancy (severe), Vomit (severe), Sexual Assault (severe - 54%), Body Horror (severe), Transphobia (moderate), Mental Illness (moderate), Confinement (moderate), Death of a Parent (minor), Deadnaming (minor), Infidelity (minor), Alcohol (minor), Child Abuse (minor), Forced Institutionalization (minor), Murder (minor), Panic Attacks (minor), Abortion (minor).
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book was published in the US by G.P. Putnam's Sons on October 6th, 2026.
This is an absolutely unhinged book. I was so weirded out and grossed out the entire time I was reading it, but somehow I finished it both in awe and completely in love with it. Samantha Josephs has created something really special.
Carrying follows Martha, a 39-year-old stealth trans woman whose carefully constructed life as a picture-perfect housewife begins unraveling when a mysterious illness awakens grotesque new appetites and leaves her impossibly pregnant.
Audacious, irreverent, and deliciously camp, Josephs blends grotesque body horror with razor-sharp satire to interrogate the violent demands of cisheteronormative womanhood. Through Martha's impossible pregnancy and increasingly monstrous transformation, Josephs exposes how beauty, desirability, reproductive capacity, and proximity to men become measures of feminine legitimacy and survival.
And Martha herself? Gloriously vain, sharp-tongued, profoundly vulnerable, and frequently insufferable. She's internalized the very patriarchal beauty standards and systems of transmisogyny that threaten her survival, wielding her femininity as both armor and a weapon against other women. She's deeply human in all her contradictions, simultaneously the architect and prisoner of her own performance, and ultimately impossible not to root for.
Beneath all the bodily fluids, rotting flesh, and increasingly outrageous absurdity is a surprisingly tender exploration of trans motherhood, bodily autonomy, and the precariousness of safety achieved through secrecy and assimilation. Carrying asks what becomes possible when a woman refuses to sacrifice her body, her autonomy, or her future to remain palatable to the people who claim to love her.
I'm so glad this book ends where it does for Martha. This is a beautiful, if extraordinarily gory, story of trans motherhood, transformation, and liberation. You'll be better off for giving it a chance.
📖 Read this if you love: Transgressive queer fiction full of grotesque body horror; morally complicated and deeply flawed transfemme protagonists; explorations of trans embodiment, reproductive autonomy, and the violent expectations of womanhood; or The Substance.
🔑 Key Themes: Trans Motherhood and Autonomy, Gender Performativity and Legitimacy, Transmisogyny, Patriarchal Beauty Standards and the Male Gaze, Passing and the Politics of Assimilation, Survival and Radical Reinvention.
Content / Trigger Warnings: Blood (severe), Miscarriage (severe), Car Accident (severe), Sexual Content (severe), Suicidal Thoughts (severe), Medical Content (severe), Pregnancy (severe), Vomit (severe), Sexual Assault (severe - 54%), Body Horror (severe), Transphobia (moderate), Mental Illness (moderate), Confinement (moderate), Death of a Parent (minor), Deadnaming (minor), Infidelity (minor), Alcohol (minor), Child Abuse (minor), Forced Institutionalization (minor), Murder (minor), Panic Attacks (minor), Abortion (minor).
Want to Read
October 8, 2026Aardvark treated me this month, and I'm very excited for this one! More details on Bookstagram, but this premise sounds delightfully insane!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Martha is absolutely Mother!
In this book we follow Martha who is a stealth trans woman who has it all: an adoring husband (I know, we'll get there ok), an adorable stepdaughter, and the jealousy of every other mom in the neighborhood. What more could a girl want? The thing is her husband really wants another kid and that's kind of a problem because Martha can't...really...do that. Except for it turns out apparently she can because Martha falls impossibly pregnant. Insanity ensues from there.
I do find pregnancy horror to be especially horrifying for me personally. Listen, the treatments Martha does to cure her mystery illness may have raised my eyebrows, it was definitely weird. But did it disgust me? Turn my stomach? Make me squeamish? Not really. Martha's illness aligning with pregnancy symptoms such as losing teeth & hair and her feet & hands ballooning painfully had me writhing in horror and reading on my phone between my fingers.
I wanted this book to be to my personal taste of horror comedy and campy, but I fear this book lost me in the last 30%. The pacing got absolutely bonkers and the climax was a little silly. Both forgivable sins. You know what's not forgivable? You get NO answers for Martha's illness! When she gets sick and meets other people who suffer from her illness (most of whom appear to be trans and queer) and I thought there might be a reason for that, but then something else is mentioned that throws a wrench in my theory. That's fine, I don't NEED to be right, I have fun speculating while reading so no worries. I thought there might be a correlation between her pregnancy and her illness. Not that we discover. How did Bruce figure out the ah, creative use of gasoline as a cure? No idea. Honestly you, dear reader of this review, have the same amount of knowledge about the hows and the whys of Martha's mystery illness as I do and I read the book.
Also I HATE when a book makes me defend a man. Especially a man as shitty as Leon,. That man did not care about Martha and just treated her as an incubator for his baby eeeyyuuuuccckkkk! But I fear that if I came home and found my spouse doing the treatments Martha was doing, I would lose my shit too.
I found a lot of the spoken and unspoken social commentary of this book really interesting, particularly how it seemed the way society treated Bruce, a trans man vs Martha, a trans woman. And their lived experiences with sexism. Bruce kind of irritated me but I wish we had gotten to know more about him over say, Roger. Who, without getting into spoilers, I don't think Martha treated very kindly in the end. Like girl he was literally just worried about you and your health & safety as his oldest friend! (Although Roger has his shitty moments too.) And of course the commentary regarding motherhood and pregnancy I found to be interesting as well. And since we're talking about mothers & motherhood, I would adopt Enid in a second. She seemed so sweet!
I will absolutely commend this book for being the most unpredictable book I have read in quite a while. I thought I knew where the plot was going at every turn and it turns out I had literally no idea what was going to happen next and I do love a book that can surprise me! I will be very interested in seeing what Samantha Josephs comes out with next, this is an author we're all going to want to keep our eyes on!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance DRC and provide a review, all opinions are my own.
In this book we follow Martha who is a stealth trans woman who has it all: an adoring husband (I know, we'll get there ok), an adorable stepdaughter, and the jealousy of every other mom in the neighborhood. What more could a girl want? The thing is her husband really wants another kid and that's kind of a problem because Martha can't...really...do that. Except for it turns out apparently she can because Martha falls impossibly pregnant. Insanity ensues from there.
I do find pregnancy horror to be especially horrifying for me personally. Listen, the treatments Martha does to cure her mystery illness may have raised my eyebrows, it was definitely weird. But did it disgust me? Turn my stomach? Make me squeamish? Not really. Martha's illness aligning with pregnancy symptoms such as losing teeth & hair and her feet & hands ballooning painfully had me writhing in horror and reading on my phone between my fingers.
I wanted this book to be to my personal taste of horror comedy and campy, but I fear this book lost me in the last 30%. The pacing got absolutely bonkers and the climax was a little silly. Both forgivable sins. You know what's not forgivable? You get NO answers for Martha's illness! When she gets sick and meets other people who suffer from her illness (most of whom appear to be trans and queer) and I thought there might be a reason for that, but then something else is mentioned that throws a wrench in my theory. That's fine, I don't NEED to be right, I have fun speculating while reading so no worries. I thought there might be a correlation between her pregnancy and her illness. Not that we discover. How did Bruce figure out the ah, creative use of gasoline as a cure? No idea. Honestly you, dear reader of this review, have the same amount of knowledge about the hows and the whys of Martha's mystery illness as I do and I read the book.
Also I HATE when a book makes me defend a man. Especially a man as shitty as Leon,. That man did not care about Martha and just treated her as an incubator for his baby eeeyyuuuuccckkkk! But I fear that if I came home and found my spouse doing the treatments Martha was doing, I would lose my shit too.
I found a lot of the spoken and unspoken social commentary of this book really interesting, particularly how it seemed the way society treated Bruce, a trans man vs Martha, a trans woman. And their lived experiences with sexism. Bruce kind of irritated me but I wish we had gotten to know more about him over say, Roger. Who, without getting into spoilers, I don't think Martha treated very kindly in the end. Like girl he was literally just worried about you and your health & safety as his oldest friend! (Although Roger has his shitty moments too.) And of course the commentary regarding motherhood and pregnancy I found to be interesting as well. And since we're talking about mothers & motherhood, I would adopt Enid in a second. She seemed so sweet!
I will absolutely commend this book for being the most unpredictable book I have read in quite a while. I thought I knew where the plot was going at every turn and it turns out I had literally no idea what was going to happen next and I do love a book that can surprise me! I will be very interested in seeing what Samantha Josephs comes out with next, this is an author we're all going to want to keep our eyes on!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance DRC and provide a review, all opinions are my own.
September 15, 2026
Carrying is a redefinition of the phrase “mother is mothering.” This book was bonkers bananas batshit insane and if you also love weird girl books: you know that’s a perfect review.
Brb, getting “you’re too cunt to die” tattooed on my body.
*thank you to the publisher for the free review copy.
Brb, getting “you’re too cunt to die” tattooed on my body.
*thank you to the publisher for the free review copy.
October 25, 2026
i could not put this down. absolutely brilliant.
October 22, 2026
i dont even have the words but im just thrilled by this book, and that it's a debut!!! so so impressive
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
BOOK REPORT
Received a complimentary copy of Carrying by Samantha Josephs from Putnam | G.P. Putnam's Sons/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.
⭐ 2.5 ⭐
Many, many, MANY years ago my husband and I went to see Delbert McClinton perform in person at a casino in Mississippi. Pretty sure it was in Philadelphia, that would’ve been the closest one to where we were living at the time.
Anyway, it was a 90-minute concert, as most casino shows are, and when it was over that man had not performed Two More Bottles of Wine.
I. Was. Livid.
I mean, do I like the Emmylou Harris version better? Yes, yes, of course I do—I am a Southern Woman Of A Certain Age, for heaven’s sake. But still, it was **the whole principle of the thing.**
What does this have to do with Carrying, which I read with my eyes sort of squinted partly shut, kinda I like I do at ridiculously gory horror movies?
The warehouse. I don’t know if it was in West L.A. or not, but it was a warehouse in L.A., and I’m sure it was in dire need of being swept in all manner of ways.
Gosh I just can’t stand Los Angeles (in real life or in books), and I think had I realized from the outset this book was set there I might’ve passed on it. Then I probably should’ve quit reading when rancid meat got involved. But, again like with the gross horror flicks, I just couldn’t look (completely) away.
Weirdly, you’d think something else that would’ve bothered me was the sex stuff, Prude That I Am, but it seemed proper part and parcel of the story so I was fine with it. And while I wasn’t quite as fine with the repeated use of the word cunt, that also was in context.
OK, I think that’s about all coherent I have in me in regard to this one. You’ll just have to make up your own mind whether it’s a path you want to travel.
The Whole Principle Of The Thing
I don’t know what it is with me and certain performers, but I went to see David Allan Coe and that sorry fucker didn’t play You Never Even Called Me By My Name at that show, even with me just right THERE up front with my head stuck in a speaker. As a full-grown adult. Ah, well. May he rest in whiskey and music, in spite of that.
AND, in the category of I Still Can’t Believe It: My Beloved Husband & I traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the express reason of seeing Ry Cooder in concert, and HE didn’t play Jesus on the Mainline.
That was 17 years ago and I am still in a snit over it. Just about as much of one as I’m in because Norman Mailer died without finishing the sequel to Harlot’s Ghost, and he’s been dead for 19 years.
What is it with you people?
DESCRIPTION
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
She’s serving.
She’s eating.
She’s . . . Carrying.
In this electrifying horror debut that’s equal parts funny and harrowing, a stealth trans woman desperate to maintain her picture-perfect life discovers that she’s seemingly—impossibly—pregnant.
Everything Martha’s wanted, she’s made for herself.
Meet Martha: perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute pro: Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her surprising, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing rapidly outside of her control and her choices dwindling, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
Received a complimentary copy of Carrying by Samantha Josephs from Putnam | G.P. Putnam's Sons/NetGalley, for which I am appreciative, in exchange for a fair and honest review. Scroll past the BOOK REPORT section for a cut-and-paste of the DESCRIPTION of it from them if you want to read my thoughts on the book in the context of that summary.
⭐ 2.5 ⭐
Many, many, MANY years ago my husband and I went to see Delbert McClinton perform in person at a casino in Mississippi. Pretty sure it was in Philadelphia, that would’ve been the closest one to where we were living at the time.
Anyway, it was a 90-minute concert, as most casino shows are, and when it was over that man had not performed Two More Bottles of Wine.
I. Was. Livid.
I mean, do I like the Emmylou Harris version better? Yes, yes, of course I do—I am a Southern Woman Of A Certain Age, for heaven’s sake. But still, it was **the whole principle of the thing.**
What does this have to do with Carrying, which I read with my eyes sort of squinted partly shut, kinda I like I do at ridiculously gory horror movies?
The warehouse. I don’t know if it was in West L.A. or not, but it was a warehouse in L.A., and I’m sure it was in dire need of being swept in all manner of ways.
Gosh I just can’t stand Los Angeles (in real life or in books), and I think had I realized from the outset this book was set there I might’ve passed on it. Then I probably should’ve quit reading when rancid meat got involved. But, again like with the gross horror flicks, I just couldn’t look (completely) away.
Weirdly, you’d think something else that would’ve bothered me was the sex stuff, Prude That I Am, but it seemed proper part and parcel of the story so I was fine with it. And while I wasn’t quite as fine with the repeated use of the word cunt, that also was in context.
OK, I think that’s about all coherent I have in me in regard to this one. You’ll just have to make up your own mind whether it’s a path you want to travel.
The Whole Principle Of The Thing
I don’t know what it is with me and certain performers, but I went to see David Allan Coe and that sorry fucker didn’t play You Never Even Called Me By My Name at that show, even with me just right THERE up front with my head stuck in a speaker. As a full-grown adult. Ah, well. May he rest in whiskey and music, in spite of that.
AND, in the category of I Still Can’t Believe It: My Beloved Husband & I traveled to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for the express reason of seeing Ry Cooder in concert, and HE didn’t play Jesus on the Mainline.
That was 17 years ago and I am still in a snit over it. Just about as much of one as I’m in because Norman Mailer died without finishing the sequel to Harlot’s Ghost, and he’s been dead for 19 years.
What is it with you people?
DESCRIPTION
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
She’s serving.
She’s eating.
She’s . . . Carrying.
In this electrifying horror debut that’s equal parts funny and harrowing, a stealth trans woman desperate to maintain her picture-perfect life discovers that she’s seemingly—impossibly—pregnant.
Everything Martha’s wanted, she’s made for herself.
Meet Martha: perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute pro: Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her surprising, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing rapidly outside of her control and her choices dwindling, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
October 12, 2026
Jedyne czego absolutnie nie rozumiem w tej pozycji to konieczność wykorzystania mięsa. W sensie rozumiem jaką funkcję spełniało dla głównej bohaterki ale no nie było to konieczne, mięso można było zastąpić innym produktem (zresztą później się tak stalo). A mówię o tym dlatego że zastanawia mnie ta nowa fascynacja mięsem, która odchodzi od metaforyki śmierci, zepsucia lub dyskusji nt praw zwierząt hodowlanych a wpada już w “magiczne rozwiązanie na różne kobiece problemy”. Ale dobra poza tym uważam że była znakomita. Wybitne wykorzystanie gatunku body horroru do przekazania samotności z jaką muszą mierzyć się kobiety, ze strachem jaki dotyka na każdym etapie życia trans kobiety, z decyzjami jakie należy podjąć będąc w ciąży, tego uczucia bycia oszukanym przez własne ciało. Autorka pisze bardzo ostro, wnioski które wysnuwa się z tej książki są jak igiełki szybko wbijane w ciało- przeszywające i zebrane w formie ciekawej i pełnej napięcia powieści.
October 20, 2026
what a wild ride
October 20, 2026
She’s serving, She’s eating, She’s…..Carrying.
Wow! What a flippen debut. Clutch those pearls transphobes because I have your worst nightmare lol The spiraling, the scheming and the perfecting are all top notch. Yes, this novel is “horror” and there are so really deranged parts BUT this story is so much more. It’s showing that you need to love yourself, except yourself and be yourself.
I can’t imagine the real-life horrors of being in a body that doesn’t feel like your own. This has a special place in my heart as I was along the ride of a very dear friend who also transitioned and it is a VERY difficult process. This book is honest, funny, real and emotional. Just perfect. Martha is so cunt. Thank you to my bestie @kelseylitsliftsanddips for buddy reading this with me. We devoured it-pun INTENDED. LOL
Wow! What a flippen debut. Clutch those pearls transphobes because I have your worst nightmare lol The spiraling, the scheming and the perfecting are all top notch. Yes, this novel is “horror” and there are so really deranged parts BUT this story is so much more. It’s showing that you need to love yourself, except yourself and be yourself.
I can’t imagine the real-life horrors of being in a body that doesn’t feel like your own. This has a special place in my heart as I was along the ride of a very dear friend who also transitioned and it is a VERY difficult process. This book is honest, funny, real and emotional. Just perfect. Martha is so cunt. Thank you to my bestie @kelseylitsliftsanddips for buddy reading this with me. We devoured it-pun INTENDED. LOL
October 22, 2026
one of the best and most unique books i've ever read in my LIFE. i couldn't put this down and needed to read it at every given moment. truly shocking, heartbreaking, but also real, raw and such a fantastic representation of queer life, the trans experience and motherhood. TENS TENS TENS ACROSS THE BOARD SAMANTHA JOSEPHS!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Samantha is an old friend from college, so I was super grateful to get an arc of her book from netgalley. This book is completely outside my wheelhouse — I read very little general fiction and satire so I'm not particularly familiar with the genre. With that said, this was absolutely batshit in a way that worked really well for me. From the get-go it's clear that this story is gross and outrageous and at times very uncomfortable. I think most people will know whether this works for them from the first few pages. This is a story focused on what it means to survive as a trans woman at any — and I do mean any — cost.
This book is grotesque in its reflection on womanhood and pregnancy and bodily autonomy, but at its core there's also a deep affection for womanhood and motherhood, despite what they cost Martha to maintain. The setting of LA, and Martha's life as a housewife within it, defines the shape this story takes and some specifics of the social pressures, but the impossible standards Martha faces (and reinforces herself) are very familiar. There's an obvious dissonance between how Martha talks about her own body and value and the bodies and perceived value of the adult women around her, and how she wants her 11 year-old step-daughter to view herself. I found this really compelling in its inconsistency and how realistic this is to many women's relationships with their mothers. There are so many forms of motherhood in this book — pregnancy and biological motherhood, step-motherhood, old and new found family — and so much respect for all of them and for the ugly costs they can bring.
This story centers on Martha seeking very controversial treatments after developing a debilitating chronic illness. These treatments are, frankly, disgusting. I kept wanting her to stop, to talk to her doctors, to do anything but continue these treatments. This reading experience was so interesting because as the reader, I did not trust Martha or her medical decisions, but the narrative did. Martha's experiences lie at the uncomfortable intersection between the real dangers of pseudo-scientific home "medicine" and the reality of people who are dismissed by the medical system and whose life-saving treatments are often labeled as disturbing or "perverted" by outsiders.
There's so much more I could say, I find myself wanting to discuss and analyze this book for hours. But beyond how interesting I think Carrying's ideas are, I genuinely enjoyed the reading experience, even in its most uncomfortable moments. I didn't always like Martha as a person, but I did sympathize with her and I was invested in her story. At least as someone with minimal experience in the genre, this was an incredibly unique reading experience. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate this story.
This book is grotesque in its reflection on womanhood and pregnancy and bodily autonomy, but at its core there's also a deep affection for womanhood and motherhood, despite what they cost Martha to maintain. The setting of LA, and Martha's life as a housewife within it, defines the shape this story takes and some specifics of the social pressures, but the impossible standards Martha faces (and reinforces herself) are very familiar. There's an obvious dissonance between how Martha talks about her own body and value and the bodies and perceived value of the adult women around her, and how she wants her 11 year-old step-daughter to view herself. I found this really compelling in its inconsistency and how realistic this is to many women's relationships with their mothers. There are so many forms of motherhood in this book — pregnancy and biological motherhood, step-motherhood, old and new found family — and so much respect for all of them and for the ugly costs they can bring.
This story centers on Martha seeking very controversial treatments after developing a debilitating chronic illness. These treatments are, frankly, disgusting. I kept wanting her to stop, to talk to her doctors, to do anything but continue these treatments. This reading experience was so interesting because as the reader, I did not trust Martha or her medical decisions, but the narrative did. Martha's experiences lie at the uncomfortable intersection between the real dangers of pseudo-scientific home "medicine" and the reality of people who are dismissed by the medical system and whose life-saving treatments are often labeled as disturbing or "perverted" by outsiders.
There's so much more I could say, I find myself wanting to discuss and analyze this book for hours. But beyond how interesting I think Carrying's ideas are, I genuinely enjoyed the reading experience, even in its most uncomfortable moments. I didn't always like Martha as a person, but I did sympathize with her and I was invested in her story. At least as someone with minimal experience in the genre, this was an incredibly unique reading experience. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate this story.
March 29, 2026
Carrying centers the unclockable (to cissies) and inimitable Martha as her stealthily maintained heterosexual marriage is threatened by the unexpected proliferation of her life's dream: she is carrying a child. After her neovagina turns medical miracle pussy, blossoming into full blown reproductive system (ovary: check, cervix: cunt, i mean check, uterus: present), her trusted gay best friend-cum-gynecologist wants to make a fortune from her unexpected fruit, meanwhile her husband just wants to keep her, and their unborn child, alive. As Martha grapples with the possibility of maternal mortality, she seeks treatment (fed to her by her TikTok algorithm) for strange cravings in the night that unexpectedly offer her a glimpse of T4T butt-chugging ecstasy she left behind in the pursuit of perma-passing. DIY vaginal discharge recipes and phrases like "newborn-baby cunt" counterbalance the horrors Martha undergoes--and eventually engineers like a madwoman, enacting her transsexual (re-)birth right to hysteria. This novel reads like a John Waters movie. It horrified me to no end but left me splitting with laughter. Samantha Josephs is a talent to watch.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I really appreciate the opportunity to read this ARC!
This was genuinely one of the craziest books I’ve ever read. I absolutely love the trans representation and the fact that the author is so open about what trans people go through. That being said, just about none of this book makes sense. Maybe that’s the point, but I found myself trying to think of a way that the main characters “treatments” actually work and was dumbfounded. The reasoning behind it was not well explained either… but the body horror, trans representation, and some of the relationships Martha had were enough to give it 2 stars.
I don’t know… maybe I just wasn’t gassed about it ;)
This was genuinely one of the craziest books I’ve ever read. I absolutely love the trans representation and the fact that the author is so open about what trans people go through. That being said, just about none of this book makes sense. Maybe that’s the point, but I found myself trying to think of a way that the main characters “treatments” actually work and was dumbfounded. The reasoning behind it was not well explained either… but the body horror, trans representation, and some of the relationships Martha had were enough to give it 2 stars.
I don’t know… maybe I just wasn’t gassed about it ;)
April 16, 2026
I fear I will never shut up about this book. It is the pinnacle of girlhood — you’re laughing, crying, screaming, throwing up, and throwing your book across the room. Everyone I’ve convinced to read it (and I’ve convinced A LOT of people) has come back to me with a different takeaway, and they all loved it just as much as I do.
This story is truly something special, and Samantha should be so proud of what she’s created.
This story is truly something special, and Samantha should be so proud of what she’s created.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Would give this 0 stars if I could.
Who cares about craft or character when you've got . . . "jokes"?
Who cares about craft or character when you've got . . . "jokes"?
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