Status Updates From Fabulous Bodies

I also don’t love the implication that not being affected by a scarring incident equals being strong or badass. For a child that young I’d assume a lack of reaction to trauma would simply be a trauma response, her brain protecting her from the trauma, something that would require extensive therapy. It seems very convenient to end the book with an 8 year old child who is conveniently totally unaffected by all this

Was there even a shred of a point for her neighbor to be a private investigator? Was that just an idea from an earlier draft that got left in?

I can’t even open the can of worms that is Noah’s death. She makes a yearly cancer donation in his name but she completely failed to process his death or reflect on the fact that he died helping her, he died without a goodbye, and after spending years trying to survive and beat cancer. I just…I can’t

I like that she doesn’t learn NOT to be an influencer. She just learns how to manage the attention.

Listen I appreciate the sentiment that Marlo is like, the good version of Eddie’s personality, but as someone who has consumed a lot of Star Wars, a franchise that spends a lot of time discussing how the bad people in your family do not have any weight on the person you become despite sharing blood with them, I don’t love reading about how Marlo is a supposed showman because she has the same blood as a bug guy

Regarding the grave robbing thing, I honestly feel like she should have been a true crime influencer. She could have made her money from sponsorships and PR boxes all the same, but she should have been profiting off the exploitation of dead people with no regard for them. The vanity could have worked too because she still needs to look good for the camera. I personally think that would have been a better fusion

I’ll actually give the book props. I was just thinking it would be cool if she lost a limb, and wow she actually did. That’s awesome. I like that she will have to learn how to live with a disability and experience a loss of privilege. I think that’s better than just having her have a bunch of cuts that will heal.

“I can’t deny our bizarre cosmic connection.” The connection that you both love entertainment and you’re both…ruthless? The second one is just a vague personality trait and the first one is common considering he’s a very famous pop icon and there are thousands of influencers in 2026. I would not call this a cosmic connection and I certainly wouldn’t feel sentimental about a bug who’s somehow my dad

I don’t even really understand, besides plot convenience, why she needed to sell dead bodies. She’s asking herself why she did it, and she says it’s because she didn’t think of them as people. And im thinking…no literally WHY did she need to do it? When she’s already a famous influencer living in a flashy mansion? The dead bodies gig really doesn’t even gel with her character to me at all

I don’t like Noah’s needless death, I don’t like the implication that poppy and Marlo will survive because they’re ruthless when Noah died because he was kind enough to help them, I don’t like the implication that this is somehow all poppy’s fault for making an effort to be beautiful in the age of social media, I don’t like it. These things feel very icky to me.

So this is somehow all poppy’s fault because she…gave into beauty standards???

Marlo spelled wrong. I’m sure they’ll catch that lol

“Her expression is not at all what I expected. She is about to cry.” You didn’t expect that? Don’t piss me off

“I learned this on movietok” you…what???

I really wish this was over

So the smart thing to do is to have Noah take Marlo and get the hell out of the house while poppy keeps the bug distracted and then kills it, but I guess we’re not doing that.

“Adorbs” oh my god I’m so mad I’m about to turn into a giant bug

Maybe I’m just being a hater at this point but I’m annoyed at how many times we are using the word “crimson” to describe blood

After the skin cancer reveal, poppy mentioned that she shudders to think of how close Noah was to being on this list, and I hate that that was included because it made me think of how much better that would have been as a plot point. If somehow Noah WAS on the list and poppy had to keep cover to try and save him, and how Noah might have been roped into it and been an exciting participant. I find that to be a waste

I like the cutting her face thing as her arc from being self obsessed but I just feel like the beginning did such a poor job of setting that up. She didn’t seem all that self obsessed. We only saw her film one video with a cowboy hat. I think we should have spent the first chapter exploring the influencer vanity instead of the grave robbing, cuz honestly that doesn’t really even matter to her character

When she says people with scars still make popular content I’m wondering if she’s talking about the girl who pretended an eyebrow stamp was a scar for years lol

Oh god I might throw up

I’m just personally not very compelled by the kind of horror where the gore is being done by a guy who’s just crazy for the sake of being crazy. At least that’s what it seems to me currently. I saw a review that said A24 needs to pick this up, but all I can picture as I’m reading this is a B horror movie that comes out In January slump season that feels like a fun but non-compelling 90 minute popcorn movie

Legacy reveals can be a hard sell for me. I feel like they can be cheap if not used right, and this feels cheap to me. It feels like strictly lore without taking into consideration the needs/wants of the character. She already had a connection to Eddie that would make this situation difficult without being related to him. Now I’m just like…okay? Why did I need to know this? It doesn’t make him scarier