REVIEW: ITCH! by Gemma Amor
ITCH! is the new feminist folk horror by the Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Award nominated author Gemma Amor. As the novel opens, Josie Jackson returns to her rural hometown following a bitter breakup with her abusive partner, Lena. Already physically and emotionally broken, Josie is unlikely to find any comfort with her temperamental widower father.
But the horror is only beginning for our ill-fated protagonist. Shortly after her return, Josie stumbles over a dead body while out for a hike. The corpse is beyond putrid: largely decayed and actively being devoured by an army of ants. When Josie reports her finding to the emergency hotline, they instruct her to remain with the body until the police arrive. But Josie cannot tolerate the stench any longer and passes out face-first into the corpse. The ants soon overrun her own body, giving Josie an incessant itching sensation even after she is rescued by authorities.
ITCH! follows several narrative threads, including the deceased woman’s backstory, the details of Josie’s abusive relationships, and the story of an annual occult event in Josie’s hometown known as Devil’s March, an eerie masked procession that occurs the first day after each autumnal equinox. Over the course of the novel, Gemma Amor masterfully weaves these disparate storylines into a veritable tapestry of horror, building to an enormously gratifying climax that left my mouth agape.
ITCH! is not for the squeamish, and certainly not for the dear readers among you who experience myrmecophobia. But for those who can stomach a tale overrun by both two- and six-legged monsters, Gemma Amor has composed a violent concerto that showcases a heroine ready to overcome the all-too real horrors that have pervaded her life. Altogether, ITCH! is an immensely satisfying novel and another highlight in Gemma Amor’s impressive body of literature.
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