Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.

Phillip, a thief with the ability to remove body parts from other people makes his living through extortion. When he accidentally steals the nose of a young man named Wycliff, that he can’t help feeling a strange pull towards, he soon finds himself involved in the search for the young man’s missing sister Adeline. We follow him as he grows and changes, discovers things about himself, his powers and the world and people around him.
An interesting YA gothic horror novel, which in particular explores abuse of power and how to survive in an unjust world. Through the isolation that Lucent forces onto Phillip, the sexual/emotional/physical labor Madame Beatrice demands of Adeline and Wycliff while keeping them captive to the murder and actual doll-ification of Nyx and Adeline by the marquess, the feeling of somebody wanting to pull the character’s strings is constantly, crushingly present. It made this novel feel really claustrophobic and the characters’ actions feel desperate and understandable. I have to say I enjoyed the horror aspects a lot more than the romance/friendship aspects as these felt a bit underdeveloped at times, but since I prefer horror to romance I was fine with that.
The story mostly follows Phillip as he discovers his identity, from his insecurities in himself while he was an egg and the immense joy and relief he feels once he manages to feel secure in his identity. I do wish he had been a bit more affirmed by the other characters, especially since his worry about his trans identity became somewhat overlapping with his worry about lies he told about his past. I would have liked a clearer distinction there. In general this story combines a rather fast paced identity discovery in a world where there are no words for trans people or any other queer communities with a later attempt at passing through the use of magic and focusses much less on the internal struggle and strive of coming out, which I found an interesting approach.
I also wish there had been a bit more of an exploration of the magic system. In particular there is one scene that does not fit with Lucent’s narration of where magic comes from ([spoilers] it is implied that Phillip was able to pop of limbs already as a baby [/end spoilers]), but this interesting storyline is not pursued further and ends up simply ignored, to the point where I wonder if it was just a plot hole, instead of a different approach to the magic system. While it is only a very minor aspect and not a big deal, I found myself caught up in wondering if this was going to be addressed and found myself disappointed when it wasn’t.
I also enjoyed the first two parts of the story more than the last part and found that the story wrapped up a bit too fast and neatly for my personal tastes. However, I still enjoyed reading it and think this was a fun trans fantasy horror YA with interesting pacing, a really fun premise and a good execution, despite my minor issues with some parts.
Finally I want to say that I do think that this book does need an additional trigger warning for suicide, which is not given, but it does play a (very minor) role in the past backstory of a character and another action can be interpreted that way and so I do think this should have been warned for. As always however, I find it very good that the author decided to include trigger warnings in the book, I enjoyed that!

TW: alcohol abuse, abuse (physical, emotional), blood, coercive control, deadnaming, death (on screen), gaslighting, gore, murder (including attempted murder of a child), sexism, transphobia, sexual abuse (implied), suicide, violence