For Human Use A Novel

The idea of this book sounded absolutely amazing and original: a dating app for corpses! The first ~10% completely pulled me in and raised a lot of fascinating questions—who would use an app like that, and why? Unfortunately, the book quickly drifts off in a very different direction. Instead of developing this unusual, slightly disturbing concept further, it suddenly focuses mostly on business, financials, and how to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the company. On top of that, there’s a love triangle involving Tom, Mara, and Auden (Mara’s stepbrother…), which I found more annoying than engaging (the situation AND the people). The really interesting aspects of the “corpse app” are pushed to the sidelines. A lot of it ends up feeling like a fairly standard corporate or rivalry story—it could have been about almost any company. Sure, towards the end some of the more interesting questions come back into focus a bit, but they never truly become the heart of the story. Overall, I was hoping for a lot more weirdness, absurdity, and tension. And honestly, labeling this as “horror” feels completely misleading. Final thoughts: a strong and original idea, but unfortunately disappointing in its execution—for me, at least. I listened to this as an audiobook, kindly provided by NetGalley and the publisher. The narration was okay.