Hot Off the Shelf: Brood X by Joshua Dysart and M K Perker
[image description: The book cover for Brood X. The cover features a drawing of a hand reaching out of a vat toward a circular opening at the top. The entire drawing is in a black ink pen style sketch with bright green and yellow coloration.]
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review and I honestly loved it. There’s an affiliate link at the bottom if you’d like a copy for yourself.
This is a spoiler-free review!
If you’ve heard the term “Brood X” before, it’s likely because of 2021’s cicadas. I don’t know if they hatched en masse where you are, but a bunch hatched a few miles away from me and they were a sight to behold! While I’m glad I wasn’t pelted with cicadas every time I left the house, it was cool to be able to drive just a little way to interact with some.
A photo of me, Mandy, a white person with short brown hair, smiling and holding a cicada on my finger. The cicada has a black body, yellowish-orange wings, and red eyes.
I think they’re kinda cute!
An up-close photo of a cicada in my upturned palm.
But if I’d read Brood X by Joshua Dysart, illustrated by MK Perker, before the hatch, I probably wouldn’t have thought the cicadas so adorable!
Before I tell you all the reasons I loved this book, here’s the synopsis:
With the Red Scare on the rise and a looming fear of nuclear war gripping the nation, seven laborers gather under the smoldering heat of an Indiana summer to begin a curious project: constructing a bomb shelter in the middle of nowhere. But when the emergence of a once-in-a-century cicada swarm ushers in a series of increasingly unlikely accidental deaths on the site, the survivors start eying each other with more than just suspicion. And with good reason. One of them has heard the cicadas' maddening song before. A nail-biting murder mystery unlike any other that will leave you guessing until the very last page.
Brood X is a nail-biting murder mystery unlike any other that will leave you guessing until the very last page. By best-selling author Joshua Dysart with illustrations by internationally-renowned artist M.K. Perker.
What grabbed me with Brood X right from the beginning is the tension. Between the looming Red Scare and the increasingly loud buzzing of the cicadas as more and more dig their way out of the ground, plus being in the middle of nowhere, tensions run high and you’re on the edge of your seat before you even really get to know the cast of characters.
For me, one of the most fun parts of reading a murder mystery is trying to guess who the murderer is (or murderers are) before it’s revealed. The best murder mysteries keep you guessing for a long time and Brood X certainly did! It’s in the style of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, which means it’s compelling and is a serious page-turner. I stayed up until like 2:30 in the morning reading it one night and it was definitely worth missing sleep.
And it will make you miss some sleep! Because this isn’t one of those cozy murder mysteries (nothing wrong with them, but Brood X ain’t one). Brood X is a murder mystery steeped in psychological fuckery and horror. If you’re easily frightened, expect to be freaked out at least a little.
Brood X is published by TKO Presents, which is one of my favorite comics publishers. However, it’s not a comic in the traditional sense––there are no panels and the story is largely text, so it’s not a graphic novel. It’s more of an illustrated novella, which I loved. It’s a quick read that dives straight into the action without a lot of world-building, which I appreciate, while still giving you doses of the visuals you’d want from a graphic. I’m thrilled TKO is publishing these illustrated novellas and I want to read them all!
I also want to mention that Brood X came to me at just the right time. Not to be a downer, but within the past three weeks, two of my cats have died of terminal illnesses and another was diagnosed with diabetes. I’ve been depressed and grieving, which makes reading certain genres challenging. I can’t read rip-your-heart-apart literary fiction about misery and trauma when I’m already crying multiple times a day. What I need right now are books that hold my attention, keep me entertained, and don’t ask me to consider the horrors of the world beyond the unlikelihood of serial killers, ghosts, zombies, and the like. I want to feel joy again and reading Brood X helped push me closer to being able to do that in the midst of my grief.
I know I would’ve enjoyed Brood X regardless, but there’s something to be said for a book that gives you what you need when you need it. I hope you’ll read Brood X and that it brings you as much joy as it did me. If you’d like to own a copy, please use my Bookshop link. Bookshop is an Amazon alternative that supports indie bookstores and this blog.
