Book Review | The Hungry Earth

In the sleepy small town of Sakima, the crime rate is low and everyone knows each other. However, when Dr. Laura Powell is called in to perform an autopsy on a teenage girl, she’s baffled by what she finds: the girl has strange white filaments attached to all of her organs and muscles.

With the help of her botanist ex-boyfriend, she tries to uncover the original source of the fungi before the rest of the town meets a similar fate.

The Hungry Earth by Nicholas Kaufmann is a fun, psychedelic-mushroom fueled horror romp.

It has some wonderfully gnarly and gross moments of body horror with mushroom stocks protruding through people’s eyeballs and skin falling off of someone’s body.

My fungi-loving heart also adored that much of this book is inspired by and grounded in real-life science. However, I do feel like, towards the end, the story does deviate into more pulpy and farfetched territory.

Overall, I think you’ll have a better time with this book if you take it for what it is. By no means is this story as poignant and emotionally-driven as The Girl with All the Gifts, but it sure is an enjoyable, action-packed popcorn read.

Thank you, NetGalley and Crossroad Press, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : October 5, 2021

Publisher : Crossroad Press

ASIN : B0976NTCSR

Pages : 186

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