Nhung and their mother live in what's left of a coast town after the death of Nhung's brother and father, in the wake of a hurricane and an algae bloom that's mutating the local wildlife. In between bloated corpses and blue bioluminescence, Nhung's given a mission: find the monster haunting the town, and buy freedom in the process.

This is a YA novel, so I'm a bit out of my depth in rating it. Yeah, the chapters are short; the "moral of the story" is laid out pretty clearly in a lot of places; we're often reminded of what happened a while back, just to be sure author and reader are on the same page. But those are genre conventions, and while I wish we'd gotten an adult version of this book, I'm so glad books like this are available now (to be picked up almost accidentally!).

The horror's well done; there's some genuinely gross lines and paragraphs lying around this novel. The backdrop of blood red algae and icy blue bioluminescence is a gorgeous visual and I didn't expect myself to get invested in the romantic subplot but they have their moments. And Nhung's just a mood at times--again, I wish I'd had this book when I was fourteen or fifteen and could've appreciated it properly. Minor gripe: some of the relationships between characters develop verrrry quickly and apparently off-page at that; they could've done with more showing and less telling. I'm not sure if that's a pacing choice or an editing thing, but some of those side characters deserved more screen time.