Nat Jacobs finds herself alone and far from home in a mirror world, where she is herself . . .and not. She can remember being nightmarishly wrenched away from her child, unbearable pain, and then nothing.
Traumatized and visibly scarred, dismissed as hysterical, irrational even—she finds others like her in a support group, all living lives of those wounded in terrible accidents that they can’t remember, taken from those they love with no explanation. And no hope of return. Or is there?
When an apparent saviour appears, claiming to have a remedy, some jump at the chance. But what if the cure is worse than the disease?
Dark bleatings, my gorgeous tribe! Boy, do I have a unique novella to tell you about today – seriously, I’ve never read anything else like this and I’m quite excited about it!
The book opens in its first two chapters with two women (who don’t know each other), who are attacked (separately) by some sort of winged, clawed beast. I was already invested, because who doesn’t love mysterious, possibly unnatural or supernatural or as of yet undiscovered beasties? But then, almost immediately, we find out that both women survived their attacks, only…they’re not themselves anymore. Literally.
When Nat and Jess woke up, they were in “their” bodies, but not really. They’re now alternate versions of themselves, in an alternate parallel world, and now they have to carry on knowing that they’re in the wrong place, living some other version of them’s life. If that isn’t a hook, I don’t know what is. I sat up straighter, delightedly muttering “What the fu******ck?” when I realised that this story was not at all what I initially thought it was.
In this alternate world, the plot thickens with a type of support group for “Scarheads”, which is what people in Nat and Jess’s exact situation call themselves. Each of these people are experiencing some pretty extreme reality dysmorphia, as you would imagine in such a circumstance. Of course, their alternate loved ones have dismissed this out of body complaint as trauma, fake memories to cover the real, horrifying ones, mental illness, etc, because who could believe such a claim?
When I tell you the horror I got from this aspect alone – because what could possibly be more frightening, disturbing, and disorientating than waking up with memories that don’t match your life at all, surrounded by people that you don’t recognise (but say they’re your family and friends), being assured that you’re not, in fact, in the wrong place? Because there are unfortunately real-world disorders and illnesses that do cause this type of disorientation, my heart was in my throat for most of the book because all I wanted was for the characters to get home (I’m in the camp of readers that believes them, but the other thing you can take from this story is that they are, in fact, suffering from some sort of illness).
What happened to the people whose bodies are now inhabited by alternate versions of them? Are they in the alternate bodies, or are they just in the ether? Are they dead? Are Jess and Nat “alive” in their own worlds, or were they killed? And let’s not forget the beast responsible for this in the first place, because holy horror story, the author didn’t just give us something so physically terrifying that it would petrify a marine, but it has reality-bending powers too?!
Thematically, the story is deep. We’re dealing with themes of all I’ve already mentioned, plus existentialism, nature vs. nurture, morality, grief, and – very strongly – love. We’re dealing with the concept of having to let go of certainty, and risking life for hope. It’s honestly as moving and thought-provoking as it is scary in concept and execution.
I think it’s a great story, truly one of a kind. I’d recommend this to horror fans that enjoy the exploration of deep issues, but not so much to people who mostly enjoy outright scenes of gore, etc. It’s lighter on that stuff and the horror is more in the effects of the attacks and life after something so awful. If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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