What do you think?
Rate this book
Win a free print copy of this book!
2 days and 08:09:24
5 copies available
U.S. only
Needlemouth
Not yet published
Expected 20 Oct 26Win a free print copy of this book!
2 days and 08:09:24
5 copies available
U.S. only
From the award-winning author of Bestiary, three cousins are forced to complete an impossible and violent task set by a vengeful demon.
Cousins Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy’s hot, tedious summer unfolds in their grandmother’s hauntingly familiar house. Mandy, the eldest, seeks connection online and exchanges emails with a stranger. Yangyang, the youngest, retreats into her own imagination in search of meaning. But every morning Cindy wakes with strange objects in her mouth: a button, a berry, a coin.
One night, a starved figure with a mouth the size of a needle-tip appears at Cindy’s bedside. She is hunger-afflicted, a demon with no descendants to feed from: she is Needlemouth. Part vampire, part hungry ghost, Needlemouth forces the girls into a grim task to end a man’s life.
Cindy, Yangyang, and Mindy are plunged in and out of the demon realm, where they are called to break out of the indifference and numbness of their claustrophobic worlds, and where they are met with the most rageful and resistant parts of themselves. In a quest to satisfy the demon’s hunger, they unravel their shared grief and reckon with the cyclical violence that shaped their family. For readers of Akwaeke Emezi and Carmen Maria Machado, K-Ming Chang has crafted a reimagined coming of age novel that asks: what does it mean to become the monster instead of slaying it?
Cousins Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy’s hot, tedious summer unfolds in their grandmother’s hauntingly familiar house. Mandy, the eldest, seeks connection online and exchanges emails with a stranger. Yangyang, the youngest, retreats into her own imagination in search of meaning. But every morning Cindy wakes with strange objects in her mouth: a button, a berry, a coin.
One night, a starved figure with a mouth the size of a needle-tip appears at Cindy’s bedside. She is hunger-afflicted, a demon with no descendants to feed from: she is Needlemouth. Part vampire, part hungry ghost, Needlemouth forces the girls into a grim task to end a man’s life.
Cindy, Yangyang, and Mindy are plunged in and out of the demon realm, where they are called to break out of the indifference and numbness of their claustrophobic worlds, and where they are met with the most rageful and resistant parts of themselves. In a quest to satisfy the demon’s hunger, they unravel their shared grief and reckon with the cyclical violence that shaped their family. For readers of Akwaeke Emezi and Carmen Maria Machado, K-Ming Chang has crafted a reimagined coming of age novel that asks: what does it mean to become the monster instead of slaying it?
288 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication October 20, 2026
About the author
K-Ming Chang
18 books764 followersK-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the debut novel BESTIARY (One World/Random House, 2020), which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her short story collection, GODS OF WANT, is forthcoming from One World.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
Want to Read
October 13, 2026k-ming chang i love whatever's wrong with you
June 21, 2026
My fellow weirdos, this one’s for you. The writing was wildly imaginative, and the female vampiric rage was such a killer concept.
There’s a lot here that feels strange, visceral, and completely unique in a hit or miss kind of way.
That said, there is a lot of talk about shit. And I mean a lot.
Thank you to the publisher for the eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
There’s a lot here that feels strange, visceral, and completely unique in a hit or miss kind of way.
That said, there is a lot of talk about shit. And I mean a lot.
Thank you to the publisher for the eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
April 13, 2026
An absolute fever dream of female rage.
Cindy, Mandy, and Yangyang have been dealt the same hand all the girls in their family have been dealt: a cultural history of misogynistic violence and only one option for a respectable life course, which is to align with men and continue the cycle of violence. This manifests in different ways for each of our characters - in Mandy its anger, in Cindy loneliness, in Yangyang surrender. Enter Needlemouth, who asks the girls, why are you willing to slowly kill yourself in this trap, but aren’t willing to kill to free yourself from it? Who asks us, what if the only way to escape patriarchal violence is to become a monster?
Now, when I say I read this book I mean my eyes looked at all the words in order. The writing is extremely abstract, more poem than novel, and I was often left feeling confused and unable to tell if what was happening was imagination, vision, dream, metaphor, or straight up lie (Needlemouth is kind of a trickster). It was hard for me to stay in the narrative when the shape of it was constantly shifting and there were some long, meandering stories in here where I fully forgot who was telling the story and why. I wish I could crawl into the author’s brain because whatever’s happening in there is really really interesting and innovative, but I’m not sure it translated. Instead, most of this book felt like an ayahuasca hallucination, just a flood of raw images and primitive symbology and violence. Also it was very gross. Like, smearing diarrhea on faces, skinning someone alive to wear their skin gross. I really loved the last 15% of this book where the narrative did come together well, but it was an act of perseverance to get there.
If this all sounds cool to you, definitely pick this one up. But maybe hire a shaman first.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!
TW: violence against children
Cindy, Mandy, and Yangyang have been dealt the same hand all the girls in their family have been dealt: a cultural history of misogynistic violence and only one option for a respectable life course, which is to align with men and continue the cycle of violence. This manifests in different ways for each of our characters - in Mandy its anger, in Cindy loneliness, in Yangyang surrender. Enter Needlemouth, who asks the girls, why are you willing to slowly kill yourself in this trap, but aren’t willing to kill to free yourself from it? Who asks us, what if the only way to escape patriarchal violence is to become a monster?
Now, when I say I read this book I mean my eyes looked at all the words in order. The writing is extremely abstract, more poem than novel, and I was often left feeling confused and unable to tell if what was happening was imagination, vision, dream, metaphor, or straight up lie (Needlemouth is kind of a trickster). It was hard for me to stay in the narrative when the shape of it was constantly shifting and there were some long, meandering stories in here where I fully forgot who was telling the story and why. I wish I could crawl into the author’s brain because whatever’s happening in there is really really interesting and innovative, but I’m not sure it translated. Instead, most of this book felt like an ayahuasca hallucination, just a flood of raw images and primitive symbology and violence. Also it was very gross. Like, smearing diarrhea on faces, skinning someone alive to wear their skin gross. I really loved the last 15% of this book where the narrative did come together well, but it was an act of perseverance to get there.
If this all sounds cool to you, definitely pick this one up. But maybe hire a shaman first.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC!
TW: violence against children
Want to Read
April 4, 2026I got my grubby little hands on a copy hell yeah (thank you to Simon & Schuster for the ARC)
---
I used to pray for days like this (now let's hope my ARC request gets approved soon)
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
---
I used to pray for days like this (now let's hope my ARC request gets approved soon)
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I don't even know where to begin with this one. This book is WEIRD (coming from someone who prides themselves on being a “weird book” lover). There is a ton of talk about literal shit and bizarre storytelling, but there was also a lot of major themes happening.
This is a story about generational trauma, female rage, loneliness, oppression, and the deeply complicated relationship between mothers and daughters (to put it lightly). Women who have spent their entire lives being punished simply for being born female, only to turn around and resent their own daughters for being condemned to that same existence. Women who wish they'd given birth to sons, not necessarily because they hate their daughters, but because they hate the lives their daughters are destined to inherit. And rather than breaking that cycle, they perpetuate it.
Two quotes in particular stopped me in my tracks:
“what’s the point in dying just to return to the same story? At night, I pose this question to ghosts. What’s the point of having a daughter if she’s going to be fed to the same life?”*
*“I don’t think there’s anything in the world I need to be afraid of. There’s nothing out there that is worse than being a daughter. You can’t escape what you’re made of.”*
I mean, how devastating is that? The idea that womanhood is something inherited like a curse. That being a daughter means inheriting not just your mother's blood, but her suffering, resentment, limitations, and every injustice she was forced to endure. The generational oppression is practically bleeding through every page.
I can recognize the brilliance of certain passages and the weight of its themes without necessarily loving the experience of reading it. The writing is visceral, surreal, but at times I felt so consumed by the strangeness that I struggled to connect emotionally with the story itself. There were moments that genuinely floored me, followed by others where I found myself wondering what exactly I was supposed to take away from everything happening.
I admired its ambition more than I enjoyed its execution. There's something incredibly powerful here about the cruelty women inherit and the cruelty they subsequently inflict, but the storytelling didn't always resonate with me in the same way its underlying message did.
Do I think it's doing something interesting and worth discussing? Absolutely. And maybe that's the most fitting way to feel about a book that is, quite literally, filled with shit and generational despair.
This is a story about generational trauma, female rage, loneliness, oppression, and the deeply complicated relationship between mothers and daughters (to put it lightly). Women who have spent their entire lives being punished simply for being born female, only to turn around and resent their own daughters for being condemned to that same existence. Women who wish they'd given birth to sons, not necessarily because they hate their daughters, but because they hate the lives their daughters are destined to inherit. And rather than breaking that cycle, they perpetuate it.
Two quotes in particular stopped me in my tracks:
“what’s the point in dying just to return to the same story? At night, I pose this question to ghosts. What’s the point of having a daughter if she’s going to be fed to the same life?”*
*“I don’t think there’s anything in the world I need to be afraid of. There’s nothing out there that is worse than being a daughter. You can’t escape what you’re made of.”*
I mean, how devastating is that? The idea that womanhood is something inherited like a curse. That being a daughter means inheriting not just your mother's blood, but her suffering, resentment, limitations, and every injustice she was forced to endure. The generational oppression is practically bleeding through every page.
I can recognize the brilliance of certain passages and the weight of its themes without necessarily loving the experience of reading it. The writing is visceral, surreal, but at times I felt so consumed by the strangeness that I struggled to connect emotionally with the story itself. There were moments that genuinely floored me, followed by others where I found myself wondering what exactly I was supposed to take away from everything happening.
I admired its ambition more than I enjoyed its execution. There's something incredibly powerful here about the cruelty women inherit and the cruelty they subsequently inflict, but the storytelling didn't always resonate with me in the same way its underlying message did.
Do I think it's doing something interesting and worth discussing? Absolutely. And maybe that's the most fitting way to feel about a book that is, quite literally, filled with shit and generational despair.
September 30, 2026
Within its opening pages, Needlemouth establishes itself as a feat of poetry, a triumph of horror, and a tapestry of violent, propulsive women. I was captivated by the plight of the three cousins and haunted by the demon who tortures them. These women manipulate their mortality. They endure the godlike curse of girlhood. They horrify and disgust us, make us ache for vengeance, and alchemize a bloodline into something more than oblivion. K-Ming Chang paints a daughter's life as a familial duty, then snaps the canvas over her knee. Needlemouth is a novel of monstrous appetites and impossible transformations, one that insists the body can be both inheritance and rebellion.
Did Not Finish
October 5, 2026DNF - 13%
The amount of literally shit talking in this book is insane. I kid you not. 13% in and we already talked about watery diarrhea, shit covered hands, sticking hands up peoples asses to get covered in shit.
Nope.
The amount of literally shit talking in this book is insane. I kid you not. 13% in and we already talked about watery diarrhea, shit covered hands, sticking hands up peoples asses to get covered in shit.
Nope.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Needle Mouth by Kim Ming Chan, I am so over unlikable characters fixations on the feces and books that sound great but turn out the way this one did I am so over it I wish I didn’t have to review it. I do not recommend. #NetGalley, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview,
Did Not Finish
June 7, 2026DNF,
i couldn’t handle the one character talking explicitly about shit
*ARC courtesy of netgalley*
i couldn’t handle the one character talking explicitly about shit
*ARC courtesy of netgalley*
June 20, 2026
Thank you to #NetGalley and #SimonBooks for the ARC of Needlemouth in exchange for my honest review.
I was very excited to read this take on a vampire/demon folklore story. Three young girls are approached by a vampiric demon, a “hungry ghost” looking for descendants to attach to and feed it. The premise sounded fantastic. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t for me. If you’re good with unlikable characters, lots of body horror, very dark themes and immature fixations on feces- this may be a read for you.
Now, what I did like- the prose was often lyrical and poetic, even with its dark, macabre and disgusting tone. It often introduced a new perspective or a unique comparison or way of seeing/expressing something that I hadn’t seen before and appreciated. I also did like the evolution and trajectory of the character arcs (but it took a long time for me to get there).
What I didn’t like: Personally, I found all the characters to be unlikable; that in and of itself doesn’t mean I won’t like the book, but it does mean I need a good hook- something to invest me in what is going to happen to those characters. I just didn’t get that in this book. For being only 238 pages, it was just such a slog. For the first 30% I’d push myself to stay engaged and when I put it down I really had to convince myself to pick it back up again. The story is told through the POV of three main characters - young girls. Their age isn’t specifically defined but their voices/maturity levels are inconsistent - sometimes they seem like they are 8-10, sometimes they seem like their late teens early 20s with the language, topics and awareness. Plus- there’s a lot of sexualization of the girls, a lot of talk/knowledge about sex that just feels really icky. Perhaps it’s part of the built in horror of the story- but sexualizing children is a hard no for me. Also, in the beginning of the book, there is an unnecessary intense focus on feces- Mindy is obsessed with thinking about eating it, smearing it all over herself and doing other things with it. It’s distracting, and added to the challenges I had with remaining engaged.
I like horror with layered and /or nuanced themes. The book does get better as you progress through it and the end is satisfying but unfortunately, for me, I think a lot of what was presented in the first third of the book overshadowed the book’s deeper themes- how this culture viewed and valued women and the misogyny, dysfunctional families, loss of self and autonomy as a result of marriage, generational traumas, mental health/ suicidal ideation, loneliness and the need to connect/fit in/be accepted.
I was very excited to read this take on a vampire/demon folklore story. Three young girls are approached by a vampiric demon, a “hungry ghost” looking for descendants to attach to and feed it. The premise sounded fantastic. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t for me. If you’re good with unlikable characters, lots of body horror, very dark themes and immature fixations on feces- this may be a read for you.
Now, what I did like- the prose was often lyrical and poetic, even with its dark, macabre and disgusting tone. It often introduced a new perspective or a unique comparison or way of seeing/expressing something that I hadn’t seen before and appreciated. I also did like the evolution and trajectory of the character arcs (but it took a long time for me to get there).
What I didn’t like: Personally, I found all the characters to be unlikable; that in and of itself doesn’t mean I won’t like the book, but it does mean I need a good hook- something to invest me in what is going to happen to those characters. I just didn’t get that in this book. For being only 238 pages, it was just such a slog. For the first 30% I’d push myself to stay engaged and when I put it down I really had to convince myself to pick it back up again. The story is told through the POV of three main characters - young girls. Their age isn’t specifically defined but their voices/maturity levels are inconsistent - sometimes they seem like they are 8-10, sometimes they seem like their late teens early 20s with the language, topics and awareness. Plus- there’s a lot of sexualization of the girls, a lot of talk/knowledge about sex that just feels really icky. Perhaps it’s part of the built in horror of the story- but sexualizing children is a hard no for me. Also, in the beginning of the book, there is an unnecessary intense focus on feces- Mindy is obsessed with thinking about eating it, smearing it all over herself and doing other things with it. It’s distracting, and added to the challenges I had with remaining engaged.
I like horror with layered and /or nuanced themes. The book does get better as you progress through it and the end is satisfying but unfortunately, for me, I think a lot of what was presented in the first third of the book overshadowed the book’s deeper themes- how this culture viewed and valued women and the misogyny, dysfunctional families, loss of self and autonomy as a result of marriage, generational traumas, mental health/ suicidal ideation, loneliness and the need to connect/fit in/be accepted.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I GOT APPROVEDFOR THE ARC!!!!!!!!!! IM SO READY!!!!!!!!
i knew this was going to be gross and weird girl fever dream queer vampire lit and was not disappointed....
three girls and a vampire demon with a needle for a mouth.
a weird, grotesque, gross fever dream ensues. and it's filled with feminine rage and a grotesque perverse and masochistic (it's hard to find the correct word to describe this) fascination with the horrors of girlhood. awful and vile things happen, and the characters psyches accept and reclaim it in a magical realism horror way!!
through such a lense we explore various feminist themes and meditations on motherhood... women's sacrifices and suffering, self annihilation, violence and rage. each character with their own form of escapism and role.
the vampire is strange and unique as well. a needle for a mouth. vampires / demons / ghosts as a metaphor for hunger and the duality that emerges from repression..
i loved the opening, the introduction of needlemouth. towards the end we get needlemouth's story, which does slow the pacing but is integral to the revelation and resolution.
k-ming chang's writing is unlike any other in its own vein of weird. magical realism, reality blurring, folklore and myth like, animal and visceral. expect shit and phallic symbols... the writing is unafraid of the filthy and the raw and the bestial. and the characters accept their horrifying reality with a mythical magical realism horror attitude.
this is literary horror. the pacing is slow and more vibes and character focused than plot focused.. i would classify this as a read that takes mental energy to get through by virtue of its themes and content but it is such a unique experience i wholly recommend.
the vampire is unlike any other, truly pushing the bounds of this creature through a queer and feminist lense. a needle for a mouth. demonic and psychic realms.
if you like weird girl lit that is Truly TRULY weird and has a fresh take on vampires... this is the book for you. if you're looking for something genre conventional, this book will be very polarizing.
i love weird lit and literary horror and am a fan of k-ming chang's work so i loved this
🩸 vampire demon with a needle mouth
🔪 feminine rage
⚰️ oppression and self annihilation
💋 girls in solidarity
🪰 WEIRD weird girl lit
📖 literary horror
🥀 no plot just vibes
⁉️ WTF
♥️ queer lense
i knew this was going to be gross and weird girl fever dream queer vampire lit and was not disappointed....
three girls and a vampire demon with a needle for a mouth.
a weird, grotesque, gross fever dream ensues. and it's filled with feminine rage and a grotesque perverse and masochistic (it's hard to find the correct word to describe this) fascination with the horrors of girlhood. awful and vile things happen, and the characters psyches accept and reclaim it in a magical realism horror way!!
through such a lense we explore various feminist themes and meditations on motherhood... women's sacrifices and suffering, self annihilation, violence and rage. each character with their own form of escapism and role.
the vampire is strange and unique as well. a needle for a mouth. vampires / demons / ghosts as a metaphor for hunger and the duality that emerges from repression..
i loved the opening, the introduction of needlemouth. towards the end we get needlemouth's story, which does slow the pacing but is integral to the revelation and resolution.
k-ming chang's writing is unlike any other in its own vein of weird. magical realism, reality blurring, folklore and myth like, animal and visceral. expect shit and phallic symbols... the writing is unafraid of the filthy and the raw and the bestial. and the characters accept their horrifying reality with a mythical magical realism horror attitude.
this is literary horror. the pacing is slow and more vibes and character focused than plot focused.. i would classify this as a read that takes mental energy to get through by virtue of its themes and content but it is such a unique experience i wholly recommend.
the vampire is unlike any other, truly pushing the bounds of this creature through a queer and feminist lense. a needle for a mouth. demonic and psychic realms.
if you like weird girl lit that is Truly TRULY weird and has a fresh take on vampires... this is the book for you. if you're looking for something genre conventional, this book will be very polarizing.
i love weird lit and literary horror and am a fan of k-ming chang's work so i loved this
🩸 vampire demon with a needle mouth
🔪 feminine rage
⚰️ oppression and self annihilation
💋 girls in solidarity
🪰 WEIRD weird girl lit
📖 literary horror
🥀 no plot just vibes
⁉️ WTF
♥️ queer lense
October 5, 2026
4.5
A top read for me this year for sure. This book tackles things like loneliness, anger, generational trauma, and the roles of women in the world. The writing is so beautiful, truly poetic. Literary horror at its finest. This is upsetting, raw, and real for people that can relate to these 3 young girls on any level. The pacing is slow but necessary as I feel it was important we really got to know Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy; their differences and similarities in experiencing the patriarchal world and generational trauma passed from their mothers and how they navigate through that. While I appreciated the stories we got from Needlemouth, they did feel quite long winded and I found myself fighting to get through them sometimes. Really my only gripe. This book will absolutely not be for everyone but I absolutely loved it. I will definitely be reading more by this author.
A top read for me this year for sure. This book tackles things like loneliness, anger, generational trauma, and the roles of women in the world. The writing is so beautiful, truly poetic. Literary horror at its finest. This is upsetting, raw, and real for people that can relate to these 3 young girls on any level. The pacing is slow but necessary as I feel it was important we really got to know Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy; their differences and similarities in experiencing the patriarchal world and generational trauma passed from their mothers and how they navigate through that. While I appreciated the stories we got from Needlemouth, they did feel quite long winded and I found myself fighting to get through them sometimes. Really my only gripe. This book will absolutely not be for everyone but I absolutely loved it. I will definitely be reading more by this author.
August 17, 2026
Gorgeous, poetic, prose. Beautiful imagery for a book about a demon. Just not my thing, unfortunately. Very prose-forward, or what some may call literary. Didn't care much for the characters. Very, very, cool take on generational trauma, though. Personally, I would give it maybe a 2, but that is for my taste. The literary merit of the work deserves a 5. I'm landing on a 3, because for the right person I think this will come across as transcendent.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
September 27, 2026
K-Ming Chang's Needlemouth is strange, visceral, dreamlike, and deeply unsettling. It transforms familiar anxieties of girlhood and family into something monstrous. Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy spend a stifling summer in their grandmother's house, each retreating into their own forms of escape. But Cindy's strange discoveries upon waking up, and the arrival of a starved creature with a mouth no larger than a needle's point, pull the cousins into a supernatural realm where hunger becomes something way more complicated than a physical need. Chang's horror is wonderfully grotesque, but the imagery is never simply there to shock. Needlemouth uses its monstrous elements to explore inherited trauma, feminine rage, motherhood, and sacrifice. The entity itself becomes an especially compelling embodiment of suppressed hunger. It represents the desires, grief, anger, and needs that have been denied generation to generation. This is literary horror at its most surreal, where magical realism and nightmare bleed together until reality is impossible to trust. Chang's prose is lush, animalistic, and strange, creating a reading experience that is as uncomfortable as it is mesmerizing. Thank you Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC. You can pick this up wherever you buy your books October 20th, 2026!
October 16, 2026
What in the world did I just read, book peeps?? I mean, I will say the writing was very poetic, but the metaphor-heavy prose left me struggling to understand what exactly was going on. 😅 And the feces fixation 😳 yeah, no.
Thank you partner Simon & Schuster for the gifted ebook in exchange for my honest review! ❤️ I’m sorry I didn’t enjoy this more 🫣
Thank you partner Simon & Schuster for the gifted ebook in exchange for my honest review! ❤️ I’m sorry I didn’t enjoy this more 🫣
July 6, 2026
“Remember: In this world, you only get one choice. You can either be good, or you can be alive.”
I received an eARC of Needlemouth by K-Ming Chang for an honest review. Here are my thoughts!
🫣 Cousins Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy are spending their summer like they always do - being bored together at their grandmother’s house, but that all changes when Needlemouth arrives. A ghost with a hunger for vengeance, Needlemouth commands the cousins to end a man’s life to save themselves. Will they survive? And after all they’ve seen and done, do they even want to? 🫣
Y’all, here’s the thing - this book was literally shit. I say literally because I have never read a book that references poop so much and I never want to again. I’ve avoided writing this review for weeks, because anytime I think back on this book all I can think of are the excessive references to poop. To eating it and bathing in it and walking through it.
And what a freaking waste. Because underneath all that shit was a story of generational trauma and how it impacts everyone differently. Hidden underneath a blanket of seagull droppings was a deep, desperate look and the specific hardships that women face.
But all I can remember is the poop. Maybe that makes me boring or means I’m missing some bigger picture, but I really don’t think I’m going to be alone in this feeling.
As for a rating? 2 out of 5 turds. There were some pretty one liners here and there, even if you had to hold your breath to get to them.
I received an eARC of Needlemouth by K-Ming Chang for an honest review. Here are my thoughts!
🫣 Cousins Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy are spending their summer like they always do - being bored together at their grandmother’s house, but that all changes when Needlemouth arrives. A ghost with a hunger for vengeance, Needlemouth commands the cousins to end a man’s life to save themselves. Will they survive? And after all they’ve seen and done, do they even want to? 🫣
Y’all, here’s the thing - this book was literally shit. I say literally because I have never read a book that references poop so much and I never want to again. I’ve avoided writing this review for weeks, because anytime I think back on this book all I can think of are the excessive references to poop. To eating it and bathing in it and walking through it.
And what a freaking waste. Because underneath all that shit was a story of generational trauma and how it impacts everyone differently. Hidden underneath a blanket of seagull droppings was a deep, desperate look and the specific hardships that women face.
But all I can remember is the poop. Maybe that makes me boring or means I’m missing some bigger picture, but I really don’t think I’m going to be alone in this feeling.
As for a rating? 2 out of 5 turds. There were some pretty one liners here and there, even if you had to hold your breath to get to them.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Cindy wakes each morning with something in her mouth such as a needle, a coin, or a bird. It's delightfully weird. Just the sort of thing I like. She is living with her aunts and her cousins Mandy and Yangyang.
Cindy doesn't remember her parents or where she came from. She comes to this house every summer, but doesn't remember any previous summers. She discovers a room in the house she's never noticed before. I have dreams like this, so this felt very dreamlike to me. Being in the room gives her the urge to hurt herself.
Her cousin Mandy once covered herself in excrement to repel other people. There's actually a lot of scatological references throughout this novel, so if that sort of thing grosses you out, you probably should avoid this. Also, don't read this if you want to avoid references to self-harm.
The novel alternates between the viewpoints of Cindy and Mandy and also includes sections told by the demon Needlemouth who has a needle for a mouth and leeches for lips. Yangyang rarely gets a viewpoint chapter and doesn't have much of a personality. She's rather passive and content to just follow others. Her worst nightmare is never dying, which is actually my worst nightmare as well.
When they were younger, Mandy would give Cindy impossible tasks such as picking up her shadow to test her loyalty. Like Mandy, Needlemouth gives Cindy an impossible task: to kill her father who's already dead. It's interesting that demons appear in the form of seagulls and live at a dump, rather than the fiery Hell demons typically dwell in.
There's occasional alliteration and sing-songy rhyme throughout which gives the novel a playful feel, even though it's horror. Too much of this would have gotten annoying, but I don't think the author overdid it. There are also a few funny lines here and there, although the humor is mostly people misunderstanding one word for another such as confusing patricide with pesticide. I did enjoy the wordplay when the characters are told instead of leaving something behind, they should leave something ahead.
It feels like the novel was written with a female audience in mind. Castration is played for laughs. Mandy believes all men deserve to die. She says she would kill any boy just for existing. Cindy also says she's always despised men. Needlemouth wants her father to die seemingly just because he's a man. Needlemouth also thinks her mother is weak because she refused to torture an innocent boy to death. Simply being born male seems to be a crime worthy of death in the world of this novel.
To be fair, the novel takes place in a culture that considers daughters worthless, so it makes sense women in this world would hate men. However, completely reversing things and promoting the message that all men are worthless doesn't feel like a corrective so much as a mirror image that's just as bad as what it's trying to critique.
Cindy doesn't remember her parents or where she came from. She comes to this house every summer, but doesn't remember any previous summers. She discovers a room in the house she's never noticed before. I have dreams like this, so this felt very dreamlike to me. Being in the room gives her the urge to hurt herself.
Her cousin Mandy once covered herself in excrement to repel other people. There's actually a lot of scatological references throughout this novel, so if that sort of thing grosses you out, you probably should avoid this. Also, don't read this if you want to avoid references to self-harm.
The novel alternates between the viewpoints of Cindy and Mandy and also includes sections told by the demon Needlemouth who has a needle for a mouth and leeches for lips. Yangyang rarely gets a viewpoint chapter and doesn't have much of a personality. She's rather passive and content to just follow others. Her worst nightmare is never dying, which is actually my worst nightmare as well.
When they were younger, Mandy would give Cindy impossible tasks such as picking up her shadow to test her loyalty. Like Mandy, Needlemouth gives Cindy an impossible task: to kill her father who's already dead. It's interesting that demons appear in the form of seagulls and live at a dump, rather than the fiery Hell demons typically dwell in.
There's occasional alliteration and sing-songy rhyme throughout which gives the novel a playful feel, even though it's horror. Too much of this would have gotten annoying, but I don't think the author overdid it. There are also a few funny lines here and there, although the humor is mostly people misunderstanding one word for another such as confusing patricide with pesticide. I did enjoy the wordplay when the characters are told instead of leaving something behind, they should leave something ahead.
It feels like the novel was written with a female audience in mind. Castration is played for laughs. Mandy believes all men deserve to die. She says she would kill any boy just for existing. Cindy also says she's always despised men. Needlemouth wants her father to die seemingly just because he's a man. Needlemouth also thinks her mother is weak because she refused to torture an innocent boy to death. Simply being born male seems to be a crime worthy of death in the world of this novel.
To be fair, the novel takes place in a culture that considers daughters worthless, so it makes sense women in this world would hate men. However, completely reversing things and promoting the message that all men are worthless doesn't feel like a corrective so much as a mirror image that's just as bad as what it's trying to critique.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I'm really confused about the star rating because this book is really different and good but I wouldn't want to read something like this again voluntarily so idk what should I base the 🌟 rating on or just leave it blank.
I went into this one with only the cover and the genre: horror. That's it. And it really tested me - not just as a reader but in terms of what I can handle. It pushed right up against and explored my triggers with themes of graphic body horror, self-harm, splatterpunk violence, child abuse, generational trauma, sexual assault, suicidal ideation, animal cruelty, death, emotional abuse, grief, blood/gore, visceral imagery, claustrophobia, violence, and not-so-traditional demonic possession.
The opening was like any other horror book. You've got this surreal, brilliant hook with Cindy waking up with buttons and berries in her mouth, but then it quickly dives into bodily fluids, urine, and self-harm that made me want to look away. I'll be honest - I almost stopped. Multiple times.
But I pushed through, and I'm glad I did. Because once you get past the shock, there's still more of it all but the book becomes something much bigger. It starts as this claustrophobic family nightmare and then transforms into a dark mythological quest.
What I really appreciate about this book is that it's not shock value for the sake of it. K-Ming Chang's prose is lyrical and hypnotic, and she uses all this body horror to talk about misogyny, generational abuse, and how women carry trauma and especially how it affects the children of the family. There's this one scene which disturbed and disgusted me but also stayed - where Mandy talks about being attracted to filth, saying that someone covered in feces would finally be left alone by a predatory world. It's devastating and ywt so painfully symbolic. Chang really understands how trauma rewires the brain and shapes the way women see themselves and the world around them. That connection between the visceral horror and the internal psychological reality is what makes this book so unsettling and so effective, even when it's hard to read.
This book wasn't for me. I'll say that clearly. But I can also appreciate the way it's written - the imagination, the creativity, the sheer audacity of it. It feels like a nightmarish dream continuing scene after scene, though at a few places I felt like there was too much happening at the same time, especially when I had to create those vivid scenes in my mind. That could just be a me problem, though.
Needlemouth is a brilliant book. It's also one of the most polarizing things I've ever read. If you can handle extreme body horror and transgressive themes, this will probably hit you hard and leave you thinking about it for days. If not - you'll know within the first few pages. For me, it was triggering. But I still respect what it tried to do.
I went into this one with only the cover and the genre: horror. That's it. And it really tested me - not just as a reader but in terms of what I can handle. It pushed right up against and explored my triggers with themes of graphic body horror, self-harm, splatterpunk violence, child abuse, generational trauma, sexual assault, suicidal ideation, animal cruelty, death, emotional abuse, grief, blood/gore, visceral imagery, claustrophobia, violence, and not-so-traditional demonic possession.
The opening was like any other horror book. You've got this surreal, brilliant hook with Cindy waking up with buttons and berries in her mouth, but then it quickly dives into bodily fluids, urine, and self-harm that made me want to look away. I'll be honest - I almost stopped. Multiple times.
But I pushed through, and I'm glad I did. Because once you get past the shock, there's still more of it all but the book becomes something much bigger. It starts as this claustrophobic family nightmare and then transforms into a dark mythological quest.
What I really appreciate about this book is that it's not shock value for the sake of it. K-Ming Chang's prose is lyrical and hypnotic, and she uses all this body horror to talk about misogyny, generational abuse, and how women carry trauma and especially how it affects the children of the family. There's this one scene which disturbed and disgusted me but also stayed - where Mandy talks about being attracted to filth, saying that someone covered in feces would finally be left alone by a predatory world. It's devastating and ywt so painfully symbolic. Chang really understands how trauma rewires the brain and shapes the way women see themselves and the world around them. That connection between the visceral horror and the internal psychological reality is what makes this book so unsettling and so effective, even when it's hard to read.
This book wasn't for me. I'll say that clearly. But I can also appreciate the way it's written - the imagination, the creativity, the sheer audacity of it. It feels like a nightmarish dream continuing scene after scene, though at a few places I felt like there was too much happening at the same time, especially when I had to create those vivid scenes in my mind. That could just be a me problem, though.
Needlemouth is a brilliant book. It's also one of the most polarizing things I've ever read. If you can handle extreme body horror and transgressive themes, this will probably hit you hard and leave you thinking about it for days. If not - you'll know within the first few pages. For me, it was triggering. But I still respect what it tried to do.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was my first read by K‑Ming Chang, and wow Needlemouth is exactly the kind of strange, unsettling, beautifully chaotic story that sticks to your ribs. First of all, the name of the book is intriguing! NEEDLEMOUTH! What pulled me in right away was the dynamic between the three cousins, Cindy, Yangyang, and Mandy, and how the author captures that mix of closeness, rivalry, boredom, and shared history that comes with being stuck together for a long, hot summer. Their grandmother’s house feels like its own character in itself, familiar and claustrophobic, and the girls’ different ways of coping with that heaviness set the tone early on. The relationship between the cousins IS the emotional core of the book. Mandy reaching out to strangers online, Yangyang disappearing into her imagination, and Cindy waking up with random objects in her mouth like buttons, berries, coins creates this eerie sense that something is already wrong before the demon even shows up. Yangyang, the youngest, retreats into her own imagination in search of meaning. And then Needlemouth arrives. The demon is such a wild creation being part vampire, part hungry ghost, part something entirely its own. Her needle‑tip mouth, her starvation, her desperation for descendants… she’s creepy, but also strangely really tragic. The way she forces the girls into a violent, impossible task (crazy!!!) of killing a man to satisfy her hunger pushes the story into full nightmare territory. The plot moves in and out of the demon realm, and those sections are some of my absolute favorite. They’re surreal, angry, and emotionally raw, pulling the cousins into confrontations with the parts of themselves they’d rather ignore. As they try to appease Needlemouth, they start unraveling their shared grief and the generational violence threaded through their family. There’s a twist toward the end that reframes what “becoming the monster” actually means, and I loved how this author leans into that question instead of offering a neat resolution. The ending is unsettling in the best way, one of those finishes that makes you sit with it for a minute. I really enjoyed this read and look forward to more by this author! #netgalley #needlemouth
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
K-Ming Chang is an incredibly gifted writer, and this is an ambitious piece of fiction. Needlemouth is a surreal literary horror with compelling mythology. Three girls become tied to an ancient demon while exploring themes of loss of agency, trauma, intergenerational debt, the exploitation of women’s labor, belonging, identity, and the cost of maternity within a patriarchal culture.
While these themes are doing a tremendous amount of work, I found the story itself only vaguely compelling. The novel is so saturated with symbolism that it rarely steps aside long enough to simply tell its story. Every page is packed with metaphors and lyrical prose, and while I can appreciate the craftsmanship, it left me feeling like I was analyzing the novel rather than experiencing it. I found it cognitively exhausting to read.
The surreal elements often felt symbolic first and narrative second. I kept wanting the story to establish firmer internal rules or let the characters engage more directly with the supernatural elements, but instead much of the novel remained intentionally abstract. That’s a perfectly valid artistic choice, it just wasn’t one that resonated with me.
The characters largely fell flat, with Mandy being the only one I felt truly invested in. There is plenty of body horror (a surprising amount, honestly), but outside of those moments this rarely felt like horror to me. The horror often seemed secondary to the exploration of its themes rather than driving the narrative itself.
The prose is beautiful, but beautiful prose alone isn’t enough for me. I prefer story driven horror where the symbolism enhances the narrative instead of replacing it. This felt like a 60-page novella stretched into a 300-page prose poem.
Readers who enjoy literary horror, dense symbolism, and novels that reward close thematic analysis will likely find much more to appreciate here than I did. I genuinely admire Chang’s talent as a writer, but this ultimately wasn’t the reading experience I was looking for.
My favorite part of the book was the gulls. Genuinely. They deserved five stars.
While these themes are doing a tremendous amount of work, I found the story itself only vaguely compelling. The novel is so saturated with symbolism that it rarely steps aside long enough to simply tell its story. Every page is packed with metaphors and lyrical prose, and while I can appreciate the craftsmanship, it left me feeling like I was analyzing the novel rather than experiencing it. I found it cognitively exhausting to read.
The surreal elements often felt symbolic first and narrative second. I kept wanting the story to establish firmer internal rules or let the characters engage more directly with the supernatural elements, but instead much of the novel remained intentionally abstract. That’s a perfectly valid artistic choice, it just wasn’t one that resonated with me.
The characters largely fell flat, with Mandy being the only one I felt truly invested in. There is plenty of body horror (a surprising amount, honestly), but outside of those moments this rarely felt like horror to me. The horror often seemed secondary to the exploration of its themes rather than driving the narrative itself.
The prose is beautiful, but beautiful prose alone isn’t enough for me. I prefer story driven horror where the symbolism enhances the narrative instead of replacing it. This felt like a 60-page novella stretched into a 300-page prose poem.
Readers who enjoy literary horror, dense symbolism, and novels that reward close thematic analysis will likely find much more to appreciate here than I did. I genuinely admire Chang’s talent as a writer, but this ultimately wasn’t the reading experience I was looking for.
My favorite part of the book was the gulls. Genuinely. They deserved five stars.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you,Simon & Schuster and NetGalley, for the chance to read this book early in exchange of an honest review.
Cindy, Yangyang and Mandy are spending their summer at their grandmother's house, with their aunts. Mandy, the eldest, seeks connection online with strangers, Yangyang takes refuge in her fantasy and Cindy in her loneliness. But every morning, Cindy finds in her mouth something weird: a coin, a bird, a button. Until one night a demon called Needlemouth appears at her bedside. She hungers for blood and connections and Cindu gives them to her, bonding herself to the demon and forcing her and her cousin into a quest to satisfy the demon's request: find and kill her father. Between nightmares and kindnappings, puppeteers and wishes, stories told by Needlemouth and the POVs of the three cousins, the story develops itself. A story about violence and womanhood, cycle of violence in the family and how to break it, grief and a coming of age.
Needlemouth's prose is the most peculiar I've ever read. Hypnotic, bold, lyrical, something hard to follow and understand, filled with metaphors and similes. The story follows Cindy, Mandy and Yangyang in their quest and the demon's presence in their lives and it's a story of motherhood, what it means to be a woman in a world ruled by men, cyclical violence in their family, shared grief, loss and rage. It's a story about rage and loneliness, it's a coming of age, it's a story about a strong bond between cousins and what they would do for one another.
Needlemouth is very, very graphic. Blood, poop, bones, skinning people alive and so on, are all present in this book.
It's not an easy read. The prose is too flowery, too convoluted and the plot complicated, so it was hard understanding the story and following the characters between nightmares, realities and alternative dimensions.
It was hard for me to read, but that's my personal opinion. I struggled and for that I won't give a high rating. This book wasn't for me, but I'm sure many will love it.
Cindy, Yangyang and Mandy are spending their summer at their grandmother's house, with their aunts. Mandy, the eldest, seeks connection online with strangers, Yangyang takes refuge in her fantasy and Cindy in her loneliness. But every morning, Cindy finds in her mouth something weird: a coin, a bird, a button. Until one night a demon called Needlemouth appears at her bedside. She hungers for blood and connections and Cindu gives them to her, bonding herself to the demon and forcing her and her cousin into a quest to satisfy the demon's request: find and kill her father. Between nightmares and kindnappings, puppeteers and wishes, stories told by Needlemouth and the POVs of the three cousins, the story develops itself. A story about violence and womanhood, cycle of violence in the family and how to break it, grief and a coming of age.
Needlemouth's prose is the most peculiar I've ever read. Hypnotic, bold, lyrical, something hard to follow and understand, filled with metaphors and similes. The story follows Cindy, Mandy and Yangyang in their quest and the demon's presence in their lives and it's a story of motherhood, what it means to be a woman in a world ruled by men, cyclical violence in their family, shared grief, loss and rage. It's a story about rage and loneliness, it's a coming of age, it's a story about a strong bond between cousins and what they would do for one another.
Needlemouth is very, very graphic. Blood, poop, bones, skinning people alive and so on, are all present in this book.
It's not an easy read. The prose is too flowery, too convoluted and the plot complicated, so it was hard understanding the story and following the characters between nightmares, realities and alternative dimensions.
It was hard for me to read, but that's my personal opinion. I struggled and for that I won't give a high rating. This book wasn't for me, but I'm sure many will love it.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own
3.00 / 5.00
This book was an incredibly difficult slog for me to get through. The author’s fixation on sh!t and sexual acts was actually very disturbing to me. While the ages of the cousins are never revealed, I had to assume they were no older than 10-12 with the way Mandy talks about kindergarten like it wasn’t that long ago and the games the cousins choose to play. But, with all the sexualization of the characters, maybe they were supposed to be older? I honestly couldn’t tell, so that felt like a big miss for me.
There was a lot that didn’t work for me with this book, but one of the biggest things was Needlemouth’s stories. She would say “listen to my story and you’ll have your answer,” and maybe I’m just not intelligent enough to understand what her stories were getting at, but they seemed to be rambling messes of loosely tied information that would go on for 30 pages and I was left questioning what the point even was. I think there is a good story in there somewhere (for instance, the theme of generational trauma was very apparent with Needlemouth’s impossible task to the cousins), but this story would have worked better for me as a short story, no more than 150 pages, with all the fecal and sex talk removed and the side-stories edited down.
I will not read more from this author. From what I’ve read in other reviews, she is hyper fixated on sh!t and it caused too much distraction from the story to be redeemable.
3.00 / 5.00
This book was an incredibly difficult slog for me to get through. The author’s fixation on sh!t and sexual acts was actually very disturbing to me. While the ages of the cousins are never revealed, I had to assume they were no older than 10-12 with the way Mandy talks about kindergarten like it wasn’t that long ago and the games the cousins choose to play. But, with all the sexualization of the characters, maybe they were supposed to be older? I honestly couldn’t tell, so that felt like a big miss for me.
There was a lot that didn’t work for me with this book, but one of the biggest things was Needlemouth’s stories. She would say “listen to my story and you’ll have your answer,” and maybe I’m just not intelligent enough to understand what her stories were getting at, but they seemed to be rambling messes of loosely tied information that would go on for 30 pages and I was left questioning what the point even was. I think there is a good story in there somewhere (for instance, the theme of generational trauma was very apparent with Needlemouth’s impossible task to the cousins), but this story would have worked better for me as a short story, no more than 150 pages, with all the fecal and sex talk removed and the side-stories edited down.
I will not read more from this author. From what I’ve read in other reviews, she is hyper fixated on sh!t and it caused too much distraction from the story to be redeemable.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Needlemouth contains all the elements I typically love in a book: surreal body horror, claustrophobic tension, family violence, and a hazy folktale atmosphere. I approached it expecting full immersion, but instead I found myself kept at a distance. K-Ming Chang has a talent for crafting vivid, unsettling imagery, and there are moments where the grotesque and lyrical merge in a way that’s genuinely striking. However, for me, those moments never coalesced into something emotionally or narratively satisfying.
I don’t require literary horror to be neat or traditional, but I do need it to feel purposeful and to progress toward something meaningful, and this book never quite achieved that. The atmosphere is dense, strange, and sensory-rich, which I can see appealing to certain readers. If you’re interested in symbolism, body horror, and dreamlike abstraction, there’s plenty here to admire. Still, I found myself wanting more from the story, more from the characters, and a stronger emotional payoff than the book ultimately provided.
Ultimately, Needlemouth struck me as a work I could appreciate more in theory than in practice. Its lush, surreal style veered from evocative to overwhelming, and what should have felt dreamlike often felt shapeless. I wanted this book to resonate more deeply, but instead I found myself admiring its parts more than truly enjoying the reading experience.
I don’t require literary horror to be neat or traditional, but I do need it to feel purposeful and to progress toward something meaningful, and this book never quite achieved that. The atmosphere is dense, strange, and sensory-rich, which I can see appealing to certain readers. If you’re interested in symbolism, body horror, and dreamlike abstraction, there’s plenty here to admire. Still, I found myself wanting more from the story, more from the characters, and a stronger emotional payoff than the book ultimately provided.
Ultimately, Needlemouth struck me as a work I could appreciate more in theory than in practice. Its lush, surreal style veered from evocative to overwhelming, and what should have felt dreamlike often felt shapeless. I wanted this book to resonate more deeply, but instead I found myself admiring its parts more than truly enjoying the reading experience.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
K-Ming Chang undeniably has a unique, highly poetic writing style. The prose is vivid, strange, and often beautifully unsettling, creating a fever-dream atmosphere that lingers long after the page. Unfortunately, that same stylized approach made the story feel incredibly convoluted for me.
Following the three cousins through this increasingly surreal scenario, I kept waiting for some clarity about what exactly was happening. Was this a vampire story? A demon story? Some kind of mosquito related body horror nightmare? I honestly never figured it out. There are moments that seem to lean toward vampirism, especially involving the girl who is buried and later resurrects, but the story never came together enough for me to feel grounded in its symbolism or mythology.
I also struggled with the repeated focus on feces. It becomes a common motif throughout the book, but rather than adding something meaningful to the plot or themes, it mostly felt there for shock value. Maybe there was a deeper intention behind it that went over my head, but it distracted me more than it disturbed me.
The writing itself is what kept this from being a one star read. Bohyun clearly has a distinctive voice, and readers who enjoy abstract, grotesque, experimental horror may find a lot to appreciate here. For me, though, the beautiful prose could not overcome a story that felt confusing, excessive, and ultimately unsatisfying.
Following the three cousins through this increasingly surreal scenario, I kept waiting for some clarity about what exactly was happening. Was this a vampire story? A demon story? Some kind of mosquito related body horror nightmare? I honestly never figured it out. There are moments that seem to lean toward vampirism, especially involving the girl who is buried and later resurrects, but the story never came together enough for me to feel grounded in its symbolism or mythology.
I also struggled with the repeated focus on feces. It becomes a common motif throughout the book, but rather than adding something meaningful to the plot or themes, it mostly felt there for shock value. Maybe there was a deeper intention behind it that went over my head, but it distracted me more than it disturbed me.
The writing itself is what kept this from being a one star read. Bohyun clearly has a distinctive voice, and readers who enjoy abstract, grotesque, experimental horror may find a lot to appreciate here. For me, though, the beautiful prose could not overcome a story that felt confusing, excessive, and ultimately unsatisfying.
October 13, 2026
Let me start by saying this cover is all the vibes. I was drowning in by it. The premise also sounded pretty good. Unfortunately, I almost DNF-ed it.
This one start off really slow. I’m not opposed to a slow burn-I’ve read quite a few-but for about the first 40% of the novel was a slog. There was not much to keep me engaged. The characters were a bit stagnant (although Mandy did have some spunk) and the story wasn’t really leading anywhere.
And then Needlemouth showed up, and the story finally took off. It was at that point that this story dug its claws into me. I was invested in who and what Needlemouth represented, and why this being showed up. There’s pain, trauma, and female rage leaking out from the pages. Chang also hammers home the pressure of generational and cultural expectations on subsequent generations, and how the pressure can build, coming out in explosive ways. It can also cause a fracture that older generations were desperate to keep from happening. It becomes the thing you fear, and you can lose what you thought would also continue.
I wish this novel would have started off stronger than it did, but it did redeem itself in the second half. That part of the book gave us the meat of what the author was aiming to lay bare. If you can get through the first half, this one will be for you.
Thank you NetGalley, and Simon and Schuster, for my arc. My opinion is my own.
This one start off really slow. I’m not opposed to a slow burn-I’ve read quite a few-but for about the first 40% of the novel was a slog. There was not much to keep me engaged. The characters were a bit stagnant (although Mandy did have some spunk) and the story wasn’t really leading anywhere.
And then Needlemouth showed up, and the story finally took off. It was at that point that this story dug its claws into me. I was invested in who and what Needlemouth represented, and why this being showed up. There’s pain, trauma, and female rage leaking out from the pages. Chang also hammers home the pressure of generational and cultural expectations on subsequent generations, and how the pressure can build, coming out in explosive ways. It can also cause a fracture that older generations were desperate to keep from happening. It becomes the thing you fear, and you can lose what you thought would also continue.
I wish this novel would have started off stronger than it did, but it did redeem itself in the second half. That part of the book gave us the meat of what the author was aiming to lay bare. If you can get through the first half, this one will be for you.
Thank you NetGalley, and Simon and Schuster, for my arc. My opinion is my own.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
DNF @ 61%
I'm....not entirely sure what the point of this story was or what it meant. This is about a female demon who's been wronged and wants vengeance, and three young female cousins are forced to deal with her and everything that happens because of her.
This story confused me because Needlemouth was often torturing or otherwise attacking the girls, who were on her side? That didn't make sense to me. Also, the girls in the beginning of the novel, before Needlemouth arrived, sounded maybe 14 or 15 years old in the way they thought and handled their emotions and relationships (read: immature and somewhat senseless), but then later in the book they would speak like they were intelligent 20+ year olds who'd majored in philosophy or something. So then I honestly had no idea how old they were supposed to be. Their actions versus their dialogue did not add up.
This would've worked better for me if the female rage aspect had been more focused. Instead of attacking Cindy and her family, Needlemouth could've simply sought vengeance on the people responsible for....ruining her life or whatever (still not sure what she needed revenge for). I was honestly just confused most of the time, and then pretty grossed out because hey, why does Mandy have a feces kink? Noooo thank youuuuu.
I'm....not entirely sure what the point of this story was or what it meant. This is about a female demon who's been wronged and wants vengeance, and three young female cousins are forced to deal with her and everything that happens because of her.
This story confused me because Needlemouth was often torturing or otherwise attacking the girls, who were on her side? That didn't make sense to me. Also, the girls in the beginning of the novel, before Needlemouth arrived, sounded maybe 14 or 15 years old in the way they thought and handled their emotions and relationships (read: immature and somewhat senseless), but then later in the book they would speak like they were intelligent 20+ year olds who'd majored in philosophy or something. So then I honestly had no idea how old they were supposed to be. Their actions versus their dialogue did not add up.
This would've worked better for me if the female rage aspect had been more focused. Instead of attacking Cindy and her family, Needlemouth could've simply sought vengeance on the people responsible for....ruining her life or whatever (still not sure what she needed revenge for). I was honestly just confused most of the time, and then pretty grossed out because hey, why does Mandy have a feces kink? Noooo thank youuuuu.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you Netgalley and SagaPress for my gifted e-arc.
Es 2.5 ⭐
El primer 10-15 % del libro pensé que estaba leyendo algo a lo que le daría 5⭐, que disfrutaría de principio a fin, pero no pasó.
Este libro se siente como the ultimate female rage story, pero es tan denso que llegué a perderme en la narración, en parte porque me confundía al no saber si lo que leía era sueño, metáfora o algo literal y también porque hay cambios de ambiente tan abruptos (historias enmarcadas) y los capítulos son tan largos que a veces se me olvidaba quien estaba narrando y me tenía que ir al índice (lo leí en digital, un e-ARC).
Normalmente disfruto el weird fiction, pero aquí me pareció un poco pesado, y aunque disfruté muchísimo el lenguaje y estilo de la autora en un principio, no podía leer durante más de 30 min porque sentía que después de ese tiempo me cansaba lo denso de la narración.
En verdad quería disfrutarlo más, porque la crítica a la viol3ncia que experimentamos las mujeres, la misoginia y la idea del coming of age monstruoso por el que atraviesan las 3 protagonistas son temáticas que me llaman muchísimo.
No sé si recomendarlo, pero si te animas a leerlo, te recomiendo que lo hagas con pausas, porque además de denso, es muy explicito en temas sensibles.
Es 2.5 ⭐
El primer 10-15 % del libro pensé que estaba leyendo algo a lo que le daría 5⭐, que disfrutaría de principio a fin, pero no pasó.
Este libro se siente como the ultimate female rage story, pero es tan denso que llegué a perderme en la narración, en parte porque me confundía al no saber si lo que leía era sueño, metáfora o algo literal y también porque hay cambios de ambiente tan abruptos (historias enmarcadas) y los capítulos son tan largos que a veces se me olvidaba quien estaba narrando y me tenía que ir al índice (lo leí en digital, un e-ARC).
Normalmente disfruto el weird fiction, pero aquí me pareció un poco pesado, y aunque disfruté muchísimo el lenguaje y estilo de la autora en un principio, no podía leer durante más de 30 min porque sentía que después de ese tiempo me cansaba lo denso de la narración.
En verdad quería disfrutarlo más, porque la crítica a la viol3ncia que experimentamos las mujeres, la misoginia y la idea del coming of age monstruoso por el que atraviesan las 3 protagonistas son temáticas que me llaman muchísimo.
No sé si recomendarlo, pero si te animas a leerlo, te recomiendo que lo hagas con pausas, porque además de denso, es muy explicito en temas sensibles.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Needlemouth is disturbing, surreal, and impossible to stop thinking about. The writing feels more like a fever dream than a traditional novel. It's poetic, messy, violent, and deeply emotional. Cindy, Mandy, and Yangyang each grapple with identity, loneliness, anger, and the expectations forced onto women, and their struggles felt painfully human even through all the horror and abstraction.
This book will absolutely not work for everyone. It’s graphic, confusing at times, and intentionally disorienting, but that’s part of what made it so effective for me.
Needlemouth herself is both monstrous and sympathetic, and the final reveal completely changed the way I viewed the entire story. Strange, haunting, and genuinely unforgettable.this. I love the psychological mind fuck that is Asian horror. The end wrapper up SO insanely well it had me staring at the wall. I'm not going to lie, it lost me for a little bit towards the end but once you hit the twist it brings everything together and makes so much sense and made the long cheaper/side story absolutely worth it.
Thank you to NetGalley the ARC!
This book will absolutely not work for everyone. It’s graphic, confusing at times, and intentionally disorienting, but that’s part of what made it so effective for me.
Needlemouth herself is both monstrous and sympathetic, and the final reveal completely changed the way I viewed the entire story. Strange, haunting, and genuinely unforgettable.this. I love the psychological mind fuck that is Asian horror. The end wrapper up SO insanely well it had me staring at the wall. I'm not going to lie, it lost me for a little bit towards the end but once you hit the twist it brings everything together and makes so much sense and made the long cheaper/side story absolutely worth it.
Thank you to NetGalley the ARC!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
What an absolutely terrifying creature K-Ming Chang has created here. The supernatural horror of Needlemouth is genuinely unsettling, and the description of the monster itself is the kind of thing that will stick in your head forever.
I also appreciated the female rage simmering throughout the story (at times, it borders on outright misandry, and honestly, I was here for the audacity). There is something deeply satisfying about horror that lets women be furious.
Unfortunately, the story itself didn’t work quite as well for me. I found the narrative somewhat muddy and repetitive, and I often felt like the plot wasn’t moving forward so much as circling the same ideas. The writing style is very distinctive, but I think that may simply have been where I struggled to connect with it.
There is some truly great horror buried in here, particularly in the creature and the themes of rage, trauma, and womanhood. I just wish the story had given me a stronger sense of where it was going. Terrifying concept, interesting ideas, but ultimately a little too meandering for me.
Many thanks to NetGalley, K-Ming Chang, and Simon and Shuster for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
I also appreciated the female rage simmering throughout the story (at times, it borders on outright misandry, and honestly, I was here for the audacity). There is something deeply satisfying about horror that lets women be furious.
Unfortunately, the story itself didn’t work quite as well for me. I found the narrative somewhat muddy and repetitive, and I often felt like the plot wasn’t moving forward so much as circling the same ideas. The writing style is very distinctive, but I think that may simply have been where I struggled to connect with it.
There is some truly great horror buried in here, particularly in the creature and the themes of rage, trauma, and womanhood. I just wish the story had given me a stronger sense of where it was going. Terrifying concept, interesting ideas, but ultimately a little too meandering for me.
Many thanks to NetGalley, K-Ming Chang, and Simon and Shuster for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The similarities and differences between the three cousins is interesting to me because there's definitely a dynamic there that's familiar in my own family. I just loved the relationship between the three of them, especially how even though they're at odds with each other, at the end of the day, they'll have each others backs.
I was grossed out by the fecal stuff but as I read on, the "father is hard, we (mother and daughter) are soft" sentiment is something that I've heard a lot and as I read on, I kind of understood the analogy more. He's hard, so we must revere him, but if we are hard we're going to clash with him. We must be soft and gentle and be like shit in the sense that we're willing to let ourselves be dirty and gross for him. At least that's how I saw it.
There was a lot of implications of family dynamics and matriarchy vs. the patriarchy, so this was a very compelling read for me.
I just wished there was more Yangyang content in this. I loved reading about Mandy and Cindy's perspectives but Yangyang was the more compelling character for me.
I was grossed out by the fecal stuff but as I read on, the "father is hard, we (mother and daughter) are soft" sentiment is something that I've heard a lot and as I read on, I kind of understood the analogy more. He's hard, so we must revere him, but if we are hard we're going to clash with him. We must be soft and gentle and be like shit in the sense that we're willing to let ourselves be dirty and gross for him. At least that's how I saw it.
There was a lot of implications of family dynamics and matriarchy vs. the patriarchy, so this was a very compelling read for me.
I just wished there was more Yangyang content in this. I loved reading about Mandy and Cindy's perspectives but Yangyang was the more compelling character for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews