Dark, twisty, and filled with trippy illustrations; this young adult book will stay with you. Cat is stuck in hell, or at least she imagines what hell would be. She's trapped in a living, breathing high school and she and the other students are slowly being transformed into monsters. If that wasn't bad enough something is roaming the halls and killing students. None of the teens have any memory of how they got there or what life was like before, but they are all desperate to escape. As Cat tries to find out who is killing her friends she starts to get flashbacks from her old life. Her life where she was an artist and her best friend was Jeremy. Are these memories a clue to how she got here? Are they clues on how to escape. The whole book is so weird and I had no idea where it was going until the very end. Inventive and unique storytelling. No spoilers, but it's pretty heartbreaking. ( )

4.75

I figured fairly early on where this was going, which I was actually happy for. Because the reading gave me time to find the deeper meaning and symbolism Zappia weaved in throughout the alternate storline. This was a sad and difficult read, but it was so well written. This is definitely a new favorite for me.

Warning: There are several triggers you need to look at before reading this. ( )

It’s been a long time since a horror novel scared the pants off me. And YA horror, when I’m getting less and less hooked by teen fiction as the years go on? That is a sign of a great book, right there.

Katzenjammer is surreal and claustrophobic and tense, to the point where I wanted to keep reading but couldn’t, because tension overload and fear of nightmares and all that. The stakes and the horror keep ratcheting up and every time I thought I had a handle on the the world of School and how horrific everything was going to get, I was not prepared. Like, to the last page I was unprepared. “Body horror” + “trapped in high school” + “she's slowly remembering everything” doesn’t even scratch the surface. This is so real and angry and beautiful and creepy and pointed and terrifying and I’m going to be thinking about this book for a while as I unpick all the layers. I want to scream from the horror and from how good it was, all at the same time.

Damn, but Zappia knows how to write.

@brightbeautifulthings​, I feel like this one might be for you.

Please, please check content warnings on this one, everyone, please. This was A LOT, and I haven’t even been in school recently.

(Releases June 28. Thanks for the publisher and my work for providing me an advanced copy.) ( )