Esta's Reviews > Grave Matter

I don’t always read gothic psychologically thrilling dark academia sci-fi horror romance but when I do, I like it with mushrooms. Preferably glowing ones.

And this delivered.

Firstly, fungi fascinates me. Something to do with them being neither plant, nor animal and sitting somewhere between beauty + decay, life + death. If shrooms fascinate you too, you’re probably also going to appreciate this story.

Secondly, Grave Matter nails the experience of ADHD in ways that feel authentic which tracks, since author Karina Halle identifies as having it too. Sydney Denik, the FMC’s descriptions of time blindness, object impermanence and the impossibility of “just not worrying about something” felt accurate and I felt seen.

[Brief tangent, because what’s ADHD without a tangent: ADHD in women is chronically misunderstood. Too often we get slapped with co-curring diagnoses or even misdiagnosis instead of being taken seriously. We’re tired. Please don't gaslight us. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.]

Thirdly, I’ve been on hiatus from psychological thrillers for years now, because I’m too familiar with the formula and know what’s going to happen... possibly a bit of enhanced pattern recognition going on there--I've seen the majority of reviewers say how surprised they were by the twist, so make sure you read other reviews! But, I think it’s worth mentioning that while I could anticipate the twists in Grave Matter, it still worked for me.

That's because the mild horror, romance and gothic tones really set it apart from just your average cookie cutter psychological thriller. Instead, we get a remote fog-shrouded island (my favourite) and an atmosphere so uncanny I was never entirely sure what was real. So if you’re someone who avoids psychological thrillers because of genre fatigue, this one might pleasantly surprise you with its genre mish mash.

Finally, and for what it’s worth, I normally avoid student-teacher romances, especially if they have an uncomfortable power imbalance, but I didn’t hate this one at all. The spice is BDSM spicy and there may or may not be a scene within a patch of iridescent mushrooms.

Shoutout to the raven named Poe, 10/10, would hang out. Needed more scenes.

Would I recommend this? Yes! It made me remember why I love strange, genre-bending books that aren’t afraid to take risks, and also realise I need more mushrooms and botany in my fiction (running to read Mexican Gothic asap).

Thank you so much to NetGalley & Metal Blonde Books for the “advanced” review copy. Advanced in commas because this has been out for a year or something, and this sat in my backlog too long. That was a mistake, but better late than never.

Content warnings:
For all my fellow animal lovers, please be aware that there is animal death and animal cruelty in this one. Other triggers warnings I caught were deaths, death of a loved one (off-page/mentioned), violence, suicide (off-page), murder, medical content, gaslighting, grief, gore, body horror, Alzheimer's (mentioned), torture, sexual content.