Eat Your Heart Out

Content Overview

Overall Content
Severity
4.2

Language

10.0/10

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

0.4/10

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

1.0/10

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

9.0/10

Potentially Intense Themes

0.6/10

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

Eat Your Heart Out

Kelly deVos

Shaun of the Dead meets Dumplin’ in this bitingly funny YA thriller about a kickass group of teens battling a ravenous group of zombies.

In the next few hours, one of three things will happen.

1–We’ll be rescued (unlikely)

2–We’ll freeze to death (maybe)

3–We’ll be eaten by thin and athletic zombies (odds: excellent)

Vivian Ellenshaw is fat, but she knows she doesn’t need to lose weight, so she’s none too happy to find herself forced into a weight-loss camp’s van with her ex-best friend, Allie, a meathead jock who can barely drive, and the camp owner’s snobby son. And when they arrive at Camp Featherlite at the start of the worst blizzard in the history of Flagstaff, Arizona, it’s clear that something isn’t right.

Vee barely has a chance to meet the other members of her pod, all who seem as unhappy to be at Featherlite as she does, when a camper goes missing down by the lake. Then she spots something horrifying outside in the snow. Something…that isn’t human. Plus, the camp’s supposed “miracle cure” for obesity just seems fishy, and Vee and her fellow campers know they don’t need to be cured. Of anything.

Even worse, it’s not long before Camp Featherlite’s luxurious bungalows are totally overrun with zombies. What starts out as a mission to unravel the camp’s secrets turns into a desperate fight for survival–and not all of the Featherlite campers will make it out alive.

A satirical blend of horror, body positivity, and humor, Kelly deVos’s witty, biting novel proves that everyone deserves to feel validated, and taking down the evil enterprise determined to dehumanize you is a good place to start.

-Excerpt taken from Goodreads.

Check Goodreads to see the book’s ratings.

My Opinion

3.5 out of 5 stars (3.5 / 5) This was such a fast-paced book! Almost immediately, you are thrown into their world of chaos starting to happen. A group of overweight kids are going to fat camp and have just arrived. A version of zombies are attacking the campers and  from here on out they are in survival mode.

There is a lot of fighting, a lot of blood and a lot cursing. This book had a lot going on. While I was entertained and read quickly, I was not immersed. There was almost no character development. I was still getting to know these people at the end of the book. I found myself wanting more backstories and more personality traits than just the generic; jock, nerd etc. Those descriptions didn’t tell me enough about them, only what was necessary at the moment. Considering we have multiple POV, I don’t feel like I got to “know” any of them. However, this book was great for the action. There isn’t a dull moment and the action is continual. Sometimes I go to action movies purely to watch things blow up on screen. I don’t need an in-depth story, I just want a lot of exploding and intensity. This book is similar to that.

I do want to say I don’t like the cover. Points for putting an overweight girl in a tough chick pose but it’s so cheesy and cartoonish that it made me not want to read it. Yes, I do judge books by their cover and I feel this one could be much better. 

Content Summary: Can I just mention that movies get a rated R rating when there are two F words. TWO. This book has 90 and it’s YA. The swearing in general was very excessive. The details of blood and bodily harm and zombies eating people or ripping them apart was intense. 

Thank you to Penguin Teen for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

The book releases June 29, 2021

Detailed Content Review

Language 

F***- 90

H***- 42

S***- 57

A**- 17

B****-

D***- 18

Bas****- 1

Religious Cursing

J****- 5

Chr***- 2

G**- 30

L***- 1

Derogatory terms etc-

Dick 

Dickhead 

Douchelord 

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A man drinks an extra martini. 

Previously, a young man stole a bottle of gin at a party. 

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

*No LGBTQ+ aspects included* 

A young woman (17) is pregnant. She plans to drop the baby off at a fire station. 

A young woman admits to sleeping with her best friend’s love interest. 

Previously, a young man found his father in bed with his mistress. 

A young woman kisses a young man. 

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

**SPOILERS THROUGHOUT** This section is full of spoilers.

A young woman has bruises she won’t explain. It is assumed it is from abuse at home. 

A young man finds a frozen body of a woman with fingers bitten off and a missing foot and arm. 

A man-like creature attacks a man, then chases a young man. A young woman hits it with an object multiple times. It is shot and hit many more times. Another creature pushes over a car with people in it. A woman screams for help. She has blood all over her. She is attacked from behind. The creature is ripping at her and taking bites while others try to fight it off. Her eyes roll back in her head as the creature continues to eat her. Another creature grabs her and takes her away. The others in the cars are assumed dead. 

A dead body falls on a young woman as she screams. 

A creature picks up a young woman and throws her into a wall. One tries to attack a young woman and a young man shoots it. 

A young woman hits a creature with an object. It breaks her arm and twists. 

A young woman punches a young man in the face. 

A creature grabs a young man’s leg and a young woman hits it with an object multiple times. A young man shoots it in the head, it falls dead. 

A young woman throws a Molotov cocktail on a creature. The creature punches a young man, sending him into the wall, leaving a large indent of his body, he gets a concussion and swelling on his face. A young woman lights the creature on fire. A young man shoots at another creature, they light that one too. There is a lot more fighting with the creatures. Throwing of furniture, shooting, lighting on fire, hitting and more.

Teens see pools of blood in the snow.  They later find an arm and a finger.  A creature knocks them over and starts eating one of them. A young woman shoots it. It goes for another, they tackle it. A young woman hears screaming and ripping of flesh. It attacks her. It is shot. The creatures head is partly missing and blood is streaming among pieces of its flesh. A young man is bleeding profusely from it “chewing” on him. There is a lot more fighting with the creatures. At one point a van is used to run over a creature multiple times. 

Many body parts line the ground in a small town. A creature attacks a van, the metal cuts a young woman’s face. The creature punches through the windshield and hits a man’s chest. They fight off more with fire. One creature grabs a young man, breaking his arm and drags him. 

Potentially Intense Themes

A young woman is overweight. Her stepdad makes snide comments about it and her mom does nothing. 

A man-like creature is terrorizing the camp. 

**Any quotes from the book are taken from the advance copy and therefore may not be fully accurate or correctly compare to the final copy of the book.

**As an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. 

3 Comments

  1. Yeah I can’t get behind this kind od YA content, plus authors would be well off showing teens interested in making healthy choices, not denying that they have a health problem

  2. I don’t like this cover either. This book sounds like it would make a really great TV show.

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