Synopsis
Fashion influencer by day and grave-robber by night, Poppy Stringer is on call when Eddie Michaels—a flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar and queer icon—unexpectedly dies. All Poppy has to do is retrieve Eddie’s body from the medical examiner’s office, but what starts as a routine delivery quickly goes off course when Eddie wakes up.
Poppy must fight for her life in a blood-soaked night of carnage and fabulous entertainment all across Palm Springs.
Review
Everyone has their favourite musician. Whether you’re a Swiftie, or a Metallica fan, or maybe you love some obscure band that no one has ever heard of and so that makes you think that you are better than everyone else. We all have a favourite, and that’s fine, man.
So, it’s always really shit when they die, isn’t it?
In Fabulous Bodies, the latest balls-to-the-wall wacky novel from Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays author Chuck Tingle, we follow Poppy Stringer, a fashion influencer and part-time grave robber/corpse stealer, as she is called to transport the body of recently deceased queer rockstar icon, Eddie Michaels, to a secret drop off on the promise of a big payout. The only problem; Eddie wakes up mid-journey, and what ensues is a blood-soaked spree through the Palm Springs night, and Poppy must do everything she can to survive the carnage.
One thing that jumped out straight away to me is that this feels like Chuck’s most adaptable work to date. It reads super quick and the pacing is lightning. I finished this book in two sittings and I was never bored. As such, a tight, sub 2 hour movie requiring admittedly little change to the plot, characters, dialogue etc, feels like something ripe for a Hollywood production. It’s flashy, exciting, and cinematic in its storytelling – to the point that I could even hear the pulsing score in my head as I was reading. It feels vivid, and Fabulous Bodies is the kind of book that doesn’t stray into anything other than readable, popcorn fun.
It would also make for great. Memorable performances, particularly in regards to our Elton John/David Bowie-esque living corpse, Eddie Michaels. Eddie steals the show here for me. He is flamboyant, OTT, commanding when on the page, and a true force to be reckoned with. Seeing him through the eyes of Poppy, who grew up as a queer woman and fell in love with Eddie’s persona and music, is a fascinating dynamic, especially considering the things Eddie does. No spoilers here, but the saying “never meet your heroes” is never truer here. Speaking of Poppy, she’s a great horror protagonist. She’s quick thinking, resilient (maybe a bit too much), hardened and not afraid to cause damage in order to survive. She’s not exactly the nicest person – and her relationship with her daughter certainly gives her a not-so-nice start – but it’s almost clear that she got her priorities mixed up in her own self-confessed self-indulgence, and when the bond starts to be threatened, she goes into momma bear mode and it’s so much fun to see.
I did have some issues with this book though, and these issues were pretty immediate. It feels like Tingle never really trusts the reader to understand what the narrative is trying to do, nor does he let us stew with the characters for an extended time, despite the fact that it isn’t exactly complicated to begin with. As such, it all feels surface level, and the messaging is just handed to us with no real effort. I get Tingle’s style of storytelling is big, bold, and vibrant – and I’d never ask for anything different – but this felt like everything was really on the nose. Poppy’s character arc is very predictable. Yes, I didn’t know how it was going to play out, but I knew the broad steps and direction this would take literally from the start of chapter 2, because everything in this book is so obvious. There is signposting, and then there is covering those signposts with flashing lights and fireworks. I made a point earlier of saying that this one feels like it is Chuck’s most adaptable work to date, and I really do feel like this could be easily made into a decent movie. But, it feels like a novelisation of a screenplay that maybe didn’t quite reach its final draft. Obviously, I have no idea if this one is even in the running for adaptation, but that’s what it felt like to me. It felt as if it was a draft for a screen project first, before being quickly pivoted to a novel. As such, there are moments in Fabulous Bodies that just don’t really land with the impact that I think Tingle wants, because it feels like they were aimed to be portrayed in a different medium. I think my problems can be boiled down to that I just found it all too overt to the point of being simple.
However, I still had a good time with Fabulous Bodies. It’s a fun, bloody, glitzy, action-packed romp through the glamour of Palm Springs, taking pot-shots at the ideas of fame, idolisation of celebrities, social media influencing, and looking at what should be important to us. Pick this up, take it on holiday with you, and get lost in a night of bloody, gruesome deaths whilst you chill out on the beach!
Thanks to Titan Books for an ARC!
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