A review by exorcismemily
F4 by Larissa Glasser

4.0

"We were giving birth to our own version of what we'd wanted the monster to be, now that we seemed to be in control."

F4 by Larissa Glasser is one of the strangest and most entertaining books I've read. There's so much packed into this little book, and it's a wild story. There are three different sections of this novella, and I could have easily read a book for each section.

First off, kaijus have arrived, so of course humans have experimented on them and finally subdued the fourth kaiju (F4) so that a luxury cruise ship could be built onto its back. This immediately drew me into the story, and I've learned that I love cruise ship horror. The trapped environment is so unsettling to me. This is a bizarro book, and the cruise ship setting totally fits. Regarding the kaiju, there's a lot going on with how humans treat creatures that they don't understand, and how humans shape things to be what they want them to be. These are good points to think about, and I enjoyed Larissa's creativity in covering them.

F4 covers such a wide range of topics that I'm not sure how to touch on everything. There's a political aspect, relationships, family, a sci-fi aspect, and also discusses the main character Carol's experience as a trans woman & how trans people are treated in society while all of these storylines are going on. It was awesome, and I loved how everything pulled together.

As I said earlier, this is a bizarro book, and a super sexual one at that. I don't think I would recommend F4 for a first-time bizarro reader since it gets kind of intense, so read a few others first & come back to this one. Larissa's writing is humorous, and I was grossed out and amused at the same time.

The timeline gets a bit confusing at times, but I think I got it sorted out by the end. The wrap-up to this book is over-the-top and funny. I really enjoyed reading this one & I can't wait to read more from Larissa Glasser!