Beautiful Brutal Bodies

Gr 9 Up–In this stand-alone follow-up to Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, 17-year-old Tian is a livestreaming musician with a massive online following in East Asia; what her adoring fans don’t know is how isolated she is. Since her mom’s tragic death, she lives under Auntie Chu’s strict rules with her protective childhood friend Liya in a mansion she’s never allowed to leave. Ancient magic emerges when some of her fans self-immolate during one of her livestreams; as it happened, she was angry and thinking of fire during her performance. Guilt-ridden, Tian is sent on her first trip out of the mansion to an artists’ retreat on the island of Xingmeng. She’s joined by Liya and her online fellow musician and collaborator Shenyu. Together they must confront the island’s mysteries, as well as their hidden true natures, in a desperate fight to escape. Cheng delightfully blends the modern and the ancient in this gruesome body horror, showcasing contemporary elements like Tian’s livestreaming while also inheriting ancestral roles within an island’s fairy tale–like legend. A strong, gripping start fizzles into a slower pace, but the enjoyably snarky characters and vivid horror scenes will keep readers engaged. All characters are East Asian.