Week 20 Review: Katzenjammer

From Goodreads:

American Horror Story meets the dark comedy of Kafka's The Metamorphosis as Cat searches for a way to escape her high school. A tale of family, love, tragedy, and masks--the ones others make for us, and the ones we make for ourselves. Katzenjammer will haunt fans of Chelsea Pitcher's This Lie Will Kill You and E. Lockhart's We Were Liars.

Cat lives in her high school. She never leaves, and for a long time her school has provided her with everything she needs. But now things are changing. The hallways contract and expand along with the school's breathing, and the showers in the bathroom run a bloody red. Cat's best friend is slowly turning into cardboard, and instead of a face, Cat has a cat mask made of her own hardened flesh.

Cat doesn't remember why she is trapped in her school or why half of them--Cat included--are slowly transforming. Escaping has always been the one impossibility in her school's upside-down world. But to save herself from the eventual self-destruction all the students face, Cat must find the way out. And to do that, she'll have to remember what put her there in the first place.

Using chapters alternating between the past and the present, acclaimed author Francesca Zappia weaves a spine-tingling, suspenseful, and haunting story about tragedy and the power of memories. Fans of Marieke Nijkamp's This Is Where It Ends and Karen McManus's One of Us Is Lying will lose themselves in the pages of this novel--or maybe in the treacherous hallways of the school.

Includes interior illustrations from the author.

My Review:
This was such a fantastic read! I loved the way that it was told, going back and forth between the progression of her life from a child to a junior in high school, and the present, stuck in this school with no way out, and the mask for a fox made out of the hardened skin of her face. Yeah, it was a bit off kilter, and it was amazing!

Watching Cat's life in the past, leading up to this, was a little bit depressing. She has a crush on her best friend's brother-and he's kinda an asshole. And throughout the book, he and his gang of friends do things that are just so unfair for Cat to have to experience.

In the present, is the investigation as to who is killing them. There's this whole mystery of why they're there in the first place, and how are they getting out, but that is slowly explained by the past chapters. And oh, when they line up, that was just unputdownable, I had to know what was going to happen next! 

I do kinda have a theory. The way things end, and the reveals there, combined with some throw off lines, makes me think that this has happened before, and will continue to happen for all those that don't experience what Cat did at the end of the book. Maybe. 

I loved reading this book, and I can't wait for more from Francesca Zappia! 

Author: Francesca Zappia 
Read: May 17th, 2022 
Source: Edelweiss 
Reason Why: Love her writing and it sounded really good, and it's a SAC 2022 Book and a WoW Book!
Publisher: Greenwillow Books 
Expected Publication: June 28th 2022

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars