(arc provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review)

Eat Your Heart Out is a summer camp thriller that is exactly what it says it is— in this Shaun of the Dead meets Dumplin' tale, a group of unlikely characters split into B-list horror archetypes have to band together and survive the zombie apocalypse when they realize no one is coming to save them. The main girl, Vivian, loves herself the way she is and knows she doesn't need to be fixed, but her mom and new step-dad send her to Camp Featherlite anyways. On the way to fat camp, her ex-best friend being on the same bus as her is the least of her problems when their first days go from bad to lethal. Vivian as Action Girl and Allie as The Basket Case are joined by The Jerk (the son of the camp's founder), The Nerd (a hacker with a secret), The Outcast (a quiet girl with an even bigger secret), and their pod's Facilitator, who might either be the Courageous Captain or the Jock with a Heart of Gold. It's up to them to see if they can fight against their pre-assigned survival chances, or if Featherlite's disastrous fatphobia will cut their lives short. 

I was expecting this to be humorous and ridiculous, but Eat Your Heart Out was more focused on conversations about fatphobia and diet culture among violent action scenes, which I thought were all done pretty well. The satire is less funny and tongue-in-cheek than scarily plausible given how fat bodies are treated in society, so this wasn't quite the horror-comedy I was expecting, but I still liked it all the same! My favorite character was definitely Vee, because who doesn't love an awesome final girl? However, this was an instance where I think Action Girl could do without a romance because I felt no draw between her and her love interest. I would even say it came out of nowhere because what I think might have been flirting in the beginning, pre-life or death situations, came off as teasing and Vee taking out her annoyance at being there on her LI. 

I would love to see Eat Your Heart Out developed as a movie because it fell somewhat short on some areas for me as a book. It leaned a little too hard into the slasher film campiness, and I would have loved to see more focus on the satire and theme. I felt there wasn't enough time spent in the camp since the setting could have probably changed without much issue, editing, or impact, and the fact that only two of the five campers were sent there against their will seems to work against the message. Their archetypes also seem to be their entire personality, except for Vee, who we get a bit more time and development with as the Resourceful Heroine. I expected some subversion of these tropes given the theme, and of course, there's no problem with not subverting tropes, but this is one of the reasons why I think Eat Your Heart Out would be a great movie instead. I could perfectly envision the scenes, which was part of why I enjoyed this book so much, and really enjoyed the descriptions. If any producer or scriptwriter is out there reading this, get cracking! 

With the POV switches keeping characters in the dark and the high-stakes action, this was a very fun read perfect for summer (which I will argue is the best time for horror)! As long as you go into it for the campy read it is, you're sure to have as great of a time as I did, and I would definitely recommend this book! 

❧ 3.5 ★