Decomposition Book - by Sara Van Os (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"A slippery page-turner that's as profoundly beautiful as it is totally unhinged."
--Rachel Harrison, New York Times bestselling author of Play Nice and So Thirsty

"Intense, irreverent, surprising, raw."
--Natalia Theodoridou, author of Sour Cherry

An emotional, electrifying, and darkly hilarious debut about a woman who finds a dead body and can't give up its ghost, for fans of Mona Awad, Yellowjackets, and weird girl fiction.

Spiraling from a disastrous falling-out with her best friend, Savannah retreats to her parents' empty lake house in upstate New York to tend her wounds. Isolated and reeling from rejection, she spends her days in a fog, drinking and overthinking in equal worrisome measure. Until she wakes up one morning in the woods behind the house--next to a dead body.

Instead of calling the police, Savannah reads the journal she finds nearby, reliving the last desperate months of this woman's life lost in the wilderness, fighting for survival. Ava, as it turns out, is more than just a cold, lonely corpse. She was funny. She was smart. And Savannah has finally found someone she can talk to...

As she pushes deeper into Ava's harrowing story, Savannah notices a change, a shift in her reality. Each page brings her closer to the Ava from the journal...and the ghost before her now. Before long, Savannah feels something for Ava she hasn't felt for anyone else--and there's a good chance letting go would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Is Savannah finally losing her grip? Or has she found the friend she's needed all along?

Review Quotes

"A slippery page-turner that's as profoundly beautiful as it is totally unhinged. Wickedly funny, brutally honest, wildly charming, and wholly original. An absolutely electric debut."
--Rachel Harrison, New York Times bestselling author of Play Nice and So Thirsty

"Fans of Yellowjackets will eat up this queer, psychologically chaotic tale. A decadently bizarre novel for fans of queer survival stories."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Intense, irreverent, surprising, raw. I relished every minute of Sara van Os's debut and--heart in mouth--will be coming back for more."
--Natalia Theodoridou, author of Sour Cherry

"Van Os's equally eerie and tender first novel is a smart and off-kilter exploration of survival and queer intimacy... Van Os skillfully captures the rising panic of getting lost in the woods, calling to mind survival horror like The Blair Witch Project and Yellowjackets, while her gloopy, visceral descriptions of decay are reminiscent of the kind of bodily unease relished by Ottessa Moshfegh... This is sure to win van Os many fans."
--Publishers Weekly

"Raw and heartrending, Decomposition Book will seduce you with its tender yet terrifying love story. Horror fans will delight at the gruesome premise while other readers will be enchanted by van Os's deft prose and poignant emotional arcs. This is a masterclass in horror."
--Kylie Lee Baker, USA TODAY bestselling author of Japanese Gothic

"Told with delicious humor and surprising grace, Decomposition Book is a compulsively readable story of courage, of desire, of unrelenting love, and of what is left when one's humanity is stripped away--whether by loss, obsession, or rot. A marvelously strange novel, both unprecedented and unforgettable."
--Kerry Cullen, author of House of Beth

"I'm obsessed. Sara van Os's narrative voice is so compelling and unique, I was eager to follow it to every deranged, dark place it wanted to take me. Unrelentingly entertaining, Decomposition Book is a wild ride you don't want to miss."
--Tatiana Schlote-Bonne, author of The Mean Ones

"Funny, poignant, and grotesque, Decomposition Book is impossible to put down. In two tragic love stories, Sara van Os pulls back the skin of her characters to reveal the humanity beneath--bugs and all."
--Maggie Su, author of Blob: A Love Story

"Swiss Army Man meets Yellowjackets in this gorgeous and grotesque debut. Weird, haunting, funny, deranged, and disorienting, Decomposition Book delivers an unforgettable story with one of the most captivating narrative voices I've read in a while. A pitch-dark delight."
--Megan Collins, author of Cross My Heart and The Family Plot

"You wouldn't think a tale about a woman's rotting corpse could be so irreverent, darkly funny, poignant, and heartfelt. Decomposition Book shows that Sara van Os is one to watch, with this outrageously readable Yellowjackets-inflected lost-in-the-wilderness horror story."
--Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces

"So sharply written and darkly funny, this is going to be one of my favourite reads of the year--I'm already recommending it to everyone!"
--Lisa Hall, author of The Woman in the Woods

"At once tender, brutal, and beautifully bizarre, Decomposition Book is an unmissable tale of isolation and homecoming that will bring you back to life."
--Tobi Coventry, author of He's the Devil

"Gripping and inventive, Decomposition Book confronts what it is possible to endure for love."
--Booklist

"Decomposition Book is disturbingly relatable, expertly weaving lighthearted moments with heavier themes."
--The Express

"Come for the weird, stay for the weird. This book's unique concept ramps up page after page and when you're done with it you'll think to yourself, 'What the hell did I just read? Can I read it again?'"
--Debutiful

"van Os excels at finding beauty within the macabre. She walks the line between horror and heart with the finesse of a mortician's scalpel."
--Macabre Daily

"[T]here is a deeply intimate feel to Decomposition Book. This is in turns a body horror thriller, a coming out and coming of age novel filled with queer longing, an examination of a debilitating invisible mental illness, and a young woman's attempt at moving on from a trauma that she does not want to let define her."
--Reactor

"[E]xactly the kind of feral, emotionally devastating, and wonderfully unhinged nightmare that I live for. It's part survival horror, part weird girl fiction, part mental health spiral, part ghostly sapphic horrormance, and just 100% queer perfection."
--Grimdark Magazine

"[E]ngrossing...wild and unhinged and occasionally messy and gory... Great themes of mental health, toxic friendship, and how we heal."
--Southern Bookseller Review

"It's a profoundly human story about imaginary connection that a psychiatrist could label with cautions but somehow comes through anyway... This is my first favourite new book of the year."
--The Nameless Zine