Flesh Paperback – 29 Sep 2017

What you get if mix up angsty teens, over protective moms, and funeral parlours. Had me from the get go right till the end.

I really enjoyed this story, I love the idea of it being in a morgue and that for Charlie, that is her life. The characters were well developed and there was some great dialogue. I thought the story was different, quirky and very enjoyable. Five stars!

This is a good, creepy book for Halloween season. Charlie, our teenage protagonist, gets called "Ghoul Girl" by her classmates because her family runs a funeral home and her mom is the coroner. Not exactly the sort of environment to foster bonding with your fellow classmates through slumber parties.No. She had one blaze of social glory the previous year when her parents were away and she held a Halloween party at the funeral home, including a tour of the "Body Shop." You can imagine how well that went over with her parents when they found out.Now she's dodging her more popular classmates who want to know if she's going to have a party again. You can guess the answer to that.Instead, the town starts to have its own zombie invasion. Bodies start disappearing from the funeral home and, in real life, people don't think zombie uprising, they think bad prank or very careless funeral home folks. One of these zombies/ghouls is a classmate of Charlie's, Amanda, and she doesn't seem to be as "grrr! arrrr!" as the rest - she's still coherent. She just has a chunk out of her, is really cold, and thinks other dead people are better than Reese's peanut butter cups.There is also an hysterically funny dachshund named Lothar who also has a taste for things he shouldn't. Bad dog - don't eat the clients.I found the story exciting and well-paced. The town has a little mystery - at one point it was totally abandoned and no one knows what happened. Charlie starts piecing the puzzle together. I just really liked how the pieces came together. I liked the Grandma character and the crazy old coot who's the caretaker of an old house. It's a fun read for Halloween.

Charlie isn’t afraid of the dead. It’s her tenth grade classmates that can send her screaming. Halloween is rolling around again and she isn’t expecting much excitement. Especially after the fiasco from last year. Her parents didn’t appreciate her throwing a party at their funeral home.This year Charlie is keeping a low profile. She’s not looking for trouble but trouble finds her when a deceased classmate, Amanda, who’s body should be resting in a morgue drawer, gets up and starts munching on corpses. That’s just the beginning of many bizarre events that start happening. Faster than you can say Ghoul Girl, she’s scrambling to hide Amanda and find out why the dead aren’t staying dead.This book is tagged as YA Horror and there were some gruesome scenes. Like the one where Amanda starts chowing down on live worms like they’re gummies. And when she chews on a corpses arm like it’s a drum stick. Those scenes made me squirm. But Laura also made them funny. The family dog, Lothar, loves Amanda because she shares her kibble. Yep he’s a man eater, kind of. He even liked the worms.Flesh doesn’t have tons of action, but there’s enough to keep the story moving fast. The character’s act genuine. And there’s a legend about Bob the Catfish that adds an interesting twist.I was torn over how to rate this book. Keeping in mind this was aimed at the younger audience, I went with 4 stars. It didn’t wow me but I had fun and I think it hit the mark for the young adult readers.I received a complimentary copy. My review is voluntarily given.

"Flesh" is a gleefully morbid, joyfully matter-of-fact take on the whole paranormal YA genre. Bickle brings her considerable talents to bear on the problems of growing up as an outsider, and adds in an original supernatural element that evokes popular zombies and vampires without surrendering to either. I'd hand this book to a teen in a heartbeat.And Lothar the Dachshund. After a flood of magical, superintelligent, or otherwise special companion animals in paranormal fiction, it's a relief to see one that's just a dog. A perfectly doggy dog, brave and loyal and utterly intent on cadging snacks from the table. Of course, dogs don't really understand the difference between "dinner table" and "autopsy table..."

It was a bit different and that’s why I liked it so much! It’s seems like once a writer writes about something(say a vampire), then the market is flooded with that type of book. This book is very unique in its storyline and because of that, it stood out! Great characters and kept me interested/ entertained throughout the whole story!

This book fascinates from the very beginning. After all most of us do wonder what living in a funeral home is like. Great creep factor here. Nice twists on zombies and a supernatural fish.