Book Review: "Nothing Tastes As Good" by Luke Dumas

I am powerless in the face of Bookstagram FOMO. So many of my friends have been praising this book nonstop, and while this isn’t a genre I read that often, I felt like I had to give it a try. It definitely hit close to home for me A LOT, but it really was excellent.

Emmett has struggled with his weight since childhood and now, in his early 30s, he weighs over 300 pounds. He hates the way he looks, the way his clothes don’t fit right, and his lack of energy. But what he hates most is the way people—colleagues, strangers, his family—treat him because of his weight.

“Because fat isn’t something you wear, like a piece of clothing. When you live with it long enough, when it’s a part of who you are, that shit goes all the way down.”

With his health deteriorating and his desire to be thin again, he enrolls in a clinical trial for Obexity, a new weight loss drug. He has nothing to lose, except weight, right? The treatment itself is horribly traumatizing, but once the drug kicks in—wow! He’s losing weight rapidly, and for the first time in a long time, guys are attracted to him, people are nicer, and he feels better about himself. Tracking his weight loss journey on social media nets him praise from his followers.

After a while, he’s lost a tremendous amount of weight, but he’s starting to feel weird. He’s having memory lapses and overwhelming hunger cravings. And then people who mistreated him start disappearing, and the police suspect coyotes, but Emmett is growing more fearful about what the drug is making him do.

This is definitely a bit gruesome and violent, but it’s so, so good. As someone who endured the ridicule and punishment for eating more than I should have, Emmett’s life triggered lots of emotions for me. I honestly loved the fact that Luke Dumas imbued this book with so much heart instead of just gore and violence. This really blew me away.

Book Review: "A Violent Masterpiece" by Jordan Harper

This was definitely one of the darker and more disturbing crime novels I’ve read in a while. But the images that Jordan Harper’s prose evoked definitely were cinematic, which really amplified the book’s power. Thanks to Mulholland Books and NetGalley for the complimentary advance copy!

Like most big cities, Los Angeles is both playground and a hotbed of crime. Jake is a live-streaming nightcrawler, taking his audience on a no-holds-barred trip through the city each night, showing up at crimes in progress and the detritus of crime scenes. It’s all an adrenaline rush for him.

Kara works for a private concierge company that serves an exclusive clientele. Whatever their clients need—drugs, sex, even more nefarious things—the company provides. Yet Kara is haunted by the disappearance of her best friend Phoebe, and the scene she witnessed at Phoebe’s apartment after she went missing.

Doug is a defense lawyer for the downtrodden. But when he is hired to defend a Hollywood pedophile, it launches him into the public spotlight—and into a web more tangled and dangerous than he can ever imagine.

These three characters become intertwined with each other as the city is reeling from an apparent serial killer and the pedophile’s vow to seek revenge. The scandal, the fear, the danger all run very deep—can they find the answers they’re seeking before their enemies attack? And who are they anyway?

This is a really gritty book which pulsates with violence, rich and powerful people behaving badly, and those who try to keep their heads above water. It would make one hell of a movie, but it’s a pretty terrific read.

The book publishes 4/28.