Book Review: The Corpse Queen

By Heather Herman 

4 Stars 

This dark feminist thriller discusses a seventeen-year-old girl named Molly who has been living a miserable life ever since she was placed in an orphanage where the nuns treated her like anything but a child. But with a sudden twist in her life, she gets recruited by her supposed aunt Ava to live with her in another city. Thinking she was sent as a maid, she thought she was bound to be unhappy and lonely. Ever since she lost her best friend, she felt that the whole world had left her in the rotting dark. But when she begins living with her aunt and learning about her luxurious lifestyle, she learns about the source of her wealth: robbing graves and selling corpses to medical schools, boosting its reputation. Along with it, Molly's job is to help her aunt with the job, digging up the graves of the unfortunate. At first, her guilt and fears overwhelm her, but that leads her to her newfound passion to become a doctor. But her main purpose is to find the person who mercilessly killed her 16-year-old best friend, Kitty, and cut off her tail with such efficiency. The old city of Philadelphia holds more gruesome and disturbing secrets than she can count. As more women get killed, the more suspicious she gets of the people around her. Along this twisty journey, she makes great comrades, falls in love with a goofy and cheerful person with a dark and loveless past, and learns to embrace her true self. Its nail-biting suspense, hidden romance, dark twists and turns, and Herrman's hauntingly beautiful writing let young readers embrace their inner darkness. 

Reviewed by Aahana 

By Holly Black 

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