Absolutely mind-blowing and terrifying!

I went into this book expecting a sort-of 'weird love story' between human and alien... I was so wrong! This turned out to be such an unsettling, eerie, and (positively) horrifying experience!

From the first page, the author described the horror of being the last surviving human, stranded in deep space with no one but dead crew members to keep you company.

The main character's fear and trauma is palpable, and is never once brushed aside. It is part of the narrative, rushing back to overwhelm her over and over again.

Thrum is a deeply unsettling story that explores the human psychology and mind confronted with unfathomable horrors in the deep dark space.

A book that took me completely by surprise, and which I will be thinking about for a long time!

A huge Thank You to Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House, and Netgalley, for providing me this ARC in return for my honest review!

The horror of abuse, trauma, chronic illness, and mental health.

Wow. There was so much packed into this story. Child abuse, gaslighting, chronic pain, self doubt and self depreciation, therapy,  and queer identity.

I didn't expect to relate to the main character as much as I did. I was lowkey annoyed with her at first, until I realised how convincingly the author portrayed the effects that abuse causes, how it lingers even if the person has moved away from the abuser, how it affects them in every aspect of their life.

The description of the MC's chronic pain was intense and raw. I experience immobilising pain myself from time to time, but it is nowhere as severe and frequent as the MC's. Still, I felt her exhaustion, despondency, and sadness. And almost worse is the believe that experts instill on you; that you're just dramatic, that you're just faking it, because there's nothing visibly wrong with you. It is a kind of horror in and of itself.

The prose felt almost like a conversation. The MC shared her thoughts, feelings and doubts. The reader sees everything through her eyes... yet so much more.

Alarm bells ring when the MC dismisses odd occurences as her being forgetful and scatterbrained. (Which is another thing I can empathize with, as someone who often finds items put in places where they don't belong.)

She talks herself down and the reader might feel the urge to reach into the story and shake her out of her self-deprecating mindset.

There were parts that I found a little difficult to get through, mainly moments when the MC lost herself in her almost childish thoughts and naive mindset. But as the story progressed, I learned more about her and began to understand her. And these feelings of 'annoyance' vanished.

The Scald-Crow was very atmospheric and eerie, with real and not-quite real horrors. The line between what is real and what is just the MC's imagination was paper-thin and kept me on my toes almost up until the very end.

Thank You to Dreamscape Media , Creature Publishing , and Netgalley for providing this ALC.