Book Review: My Name Isn’t Paul by Drew Huff
Title: My Name Isn’t Paul
Author: Drew Huff
Release date: November 18th, 2025
*Huge thanks to Drew for sending me a digital ARC of this one!*
Having previously read and greatly enjoyed Drew’s novel ‘The Divine Flesh,’ when they reached out to me about asking if I’d be down to check out this cosmic horror novella, I was very intrigued. The synopsis is, frankly, an odd one. Mirror people – things that are not human buy kind of cosplaying as humans. Or to quote from the synopsis, “…a hyper-empathetic eldritch abomination.” Interesting. Honestly, when reading this synopsis, about these abomination’s that take the form of people by wearing their skin and then having a breeding season, I didn’t know what to expect at all. Then, Drew throws in the mental breakdown, cross country angle two sentences later and I thought of the hilarious movie, ‘Paul,’ with Seth Rogan. With all that said, I still had no idea what I’d find within these pages, but that never deters me!
What I liked: The story follows Paul, though not Paul. Paul was a guy – a complete dick, as it turns out – who died in a car crash, only to have our main alien character come across his body and slither within. Over the last decade, this alien’s lived nicely within the skinsuit, real Paul’s wife coming to realize it wasn’t him that came back from the road trip. You see, real Paul was a travelling salesman, selling vacuums etc. and so this alien takes up that job and continues to go about their life as though they are actually Paul. But that all changes when one of their alien pals takes their own life and alien Paul gets thrown into heat and needs to breed. Got it? Keeping up?
From there, we get a mix of introspective examinations and external carnage. It works on a purely shock level of ripping and shredding, but also metaphorically over big life changes. I found with the way the alien beings were described, that this would work very well as a trans person’s look at what society expects and believes and what they want for themselves. We get a constant badgering of ‘when are you going to have kids?’ and ‘why wouldn’t you want to be what your were born?’ alongside the Paul alien discussing what makes them happy and what they want to achieve in their life. I might be off on it, but that sentiment seemed to really ring out, and though I say a trans person’s outlook, I could see it applying to immigrants and LGTBQ folks as well.
The final quarter sees the storylines merging together and we learn what kind of ticked Paul off into this crazy trip he went on and we see where things will go from there. It’s a solid wrap up, even with real Paul’s wife and how the Mirror People are more tuned in with the wider world than it at first seems.
What I didn’t like: I do often struggle with significant perspective changes and that’s really what Part 2 was. Part 1 and 3 are based on Paul and part 2 is based on the other alien bug things. It made for a jarring shift, so if you struggle with that, be warned, but it worked well to give us some back story and some fill in on what was happening while Paul brokedown.
Why you should buy this: While it’s listed as a cosmic horror novella, this one is hard to peg down into any one genre. It’s got elements of sci-fi, bizarro, splatterpunk and erotica. Its kind of a melting pot of ideas that merge together to form this batshit crazy story that was a lot of fun to read.
Go into this one with a grin on your face, because when you finish, that grin will be a massive smile plastered across the entirety of your face. What a ride.
