Book Review: Free Burn by Drew Huff

 

“In the end . . . all bodies are costumes. Make-believe that rots.”

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As Free Burn opens, Triple-Six is a 6’ 4” tall, 22-year-old mutating “freakshow” with superhuman characteristics and a sort-of girlfriend, Mallory Worner, daughter of the infamous Lorraine Worner, known as the “Barbecue Butcher” and the “Texan pyromaniac serial killer” prior to her capture and execution. Institutionalized since infancy, Triple-Six is lovestruck despite recently losing his mother and enduring a lifetime of inhumane treatment. And when he accidentally frees Lorraine from Hell and she goes after Mallory, he’s forced to fight for both of their lives while coming to terms with who and what he really is.

This novel is intense, raw, and emotion-fueled, immediately rocketing into unhinged territory and taking the reader on a wild, brutal, gory, outright insane ride filled with horrific, petrifying, gag-inducing, WTF-aplenty moments. Extreme in every sense of the word, the storyline is also deeply resonant and emotional; the world building is creative, complex, and immersive; the setting and atmosphere are visceral and fully developed (practically tangible in depth and detail); and the writing is sharp, propulsive, and page-turning to the max.

These elements combine to produce an intricate account of inescapable fear and brutality coupled with gnarly body horror and past terrors that refuse to die: representations of unattainable peace and elusive future and an exploration of monstrousness. Triple-Six, who’s actually transforming into something new and frightening, is more caring, empathetic, forgiving, and compassionate than any fully-fledged human in the story, even (and especially) toward those who have hurt him the most. He is humanity among chaos and evil; he strives to be better and do what’s right in spite of his terrible circumstances.

He and Mallory serve as beacons of self-sacrifice and self-acceptance, mistreatment and exploitation, objectification and dehumanization. What they endure is nothing short of horrifying, a tale of life and death, love and lust, violence and cruelty, trauma and abuse, murder and torture, bonds and anchors, lies and bargains, freedom and agency, Hell and Earth, bodies and souls, truth and dissociation, perception and reality, desire and loathing, humans and demons — literal and figurative, within and without — all fighting and killing, quelling and striving, torturing and haunting. It’s a violent, graphic, disturbing, shocking, seething, bizarre, harrowing, brilliant, appalling, and utterly fearless journey with immense heart and fully-fleshed characters for whom the reader heartily roots. It explores the permanence of change and impossibility of devolution, as well as acceptance — of self, others, and situations — and the realization that death may not be the worst or scariest thing possible. And, as an added bonus, the author’s own gruesome, black-and-white illustrations are interspersed throughout, the perfect accompaniment to and embodiment of the no-holds-barred text.

Thank you to BookSirens and Dark Matter INK for providing an eARC of this book for review consideration. It’s a ferocious and awe-inspiring debut that makes this reader beyond excited to see what Drew Huff writes next!

🖤Amanda