Special Treat: I've read Moonflow

I don't know if this qualifies as a review or not, but I wanna talk about a book I just finished that I have an abundance of thoughts about.

I'm gonna leave the spoiler-free gushing here for all the visitors and free members to read. If you like how I write and wanna read more, Imp Tier gets you a whole lotta steamy stuff from me.

So...Moonflow.

You can buy it here.

I have been eagerly anticipating this horror novel since it was first announced. Having finally gotten to read it, it's a triumph not just in squicky body horror goodness, but also in queer/trans horror. It deserves to stand among its contemporaries as a twisted little romp into the dark, foreboding woods of northern California, but it's also a resounding achievement for queer little fat-loving goblin women (like myself) to have gotten their work published on this scale.

Bitter Karella has been iterating on this particular story for years now. It is a culmination of so many different creative projects, and to see a final product that's this slick and well put together is fantastic.

It's heavily inspired by her previous interactive fiction work Toadstools, which is worth checking out.

The story itself is a gripping haunt set in the tall, dark, rainy woods north of California's central valley. The first part of the book perfectly captures the creepy vibes of being lost in the woods while hiking, knowing that you will likely die here, and no one will ever find you. The second part recalls Satanic cult murders inspired by the Manson Family (though there's a more explicit reference to Jeffrey MacDonald). The third part is an off the rails psychedelic horror show that's grisly and uncomfortable, with a final act dedicated to fungal monstrosity as a vehicle for transcending humanity.

If you've never done shrooms before, it's like a bad trip sandwiched between two other bad trips, but you're kinda horny through them so it's okay, making the really bad trip in the middle worth going through.

I liked this book a bunch.

It contains a lot of grisly horror stuff, but also a lot of trans and gender stuff, both of which warrant content warnings and might be deal breakers for a lot of people, so fair warning.

But still, if you have an appetite for psychedelic horror, fungal body horror, queer, trans, and sapphic characters, as well as some lurid fat-love and body expansion scenes, you might just like this book too.

Now on to my deeper, somewhat spoilery thoughts.

All the kinky little things I loved about Moonflow

From this point on, there are mild spoilers ahead.

Reading through Moonflow, I was constantly reminded in little moments, that despite the book's handful of flaws (which I'll get into below), it was abundantly clear that Bitter Karella is very much 'one of us'.

Which is to say that Moonflow is incredibly horny.

For some that will be a detractor, but for a pervy woman like me, I ate it up with a spoon~

For those coming to this book directly from me, someone who writes fat f*tish content, here are some things you can look forward to:

• The protagonist of the story is fat trans woman who wants cartoonishly large tits. Same tho. I have seldom felt so seen by a POV character in a novel before.

• One explicit fat f*tishist character who loves bellies and feeding, and is also a total goblin about it.

• A giant fat muscle mommy lesbian character who is the deuteragonist of the story, powered by religious trauma that I couldn't help but relate to.

• Psychedelic drug-induced breast expansion.

• Mutagenic lactation with hints of belly expansion.

• Giant fungus creature monster fucking.

As a fat trans woman with a whole laundry list of kinks in line with these, this novel was a buffet for me.

Momma ate good. She is stuffed to bursting.

Sarah is the most relatable transfemme protagonist (to me)

Queer writers, particularly transgender writers (myself included), are always side-eyeing other queer writers about how we cover and tackle 'queerness' and 'transness' in our fiction.

All of our experiences are unique, and our opinions on gender and sexuality are equally unique. No trans woman is a monolith of trans experience and what it means to be trans, and this goes double for each of our experiences and the themes we write about what it means 'to be a woman'.

I have to bite my tongue a lot when freshly cracked eggs expound their opinions about their 'feminine experiences' when all it sounds like to me is gay male misogyny with lipstick on. I cannot help but side eye other trans writers about this shit.

That having been said, the main character of Moonflow, Sarah, struck me as an extremely relatable trans protagonist.

Sarah is a woman. Her perspectives read as the experiences of a woman (particularly a woman in a horror novel). Her desires of self and sexuality hit me as incredibly relatable as a woman (who was not assigned female at birth).

Sarah's whole deal in this book is that she is a down on her luck mycologist who just wants enough money to pay rent and for someone to take care of her cat Herman. That's her call to adventure to seek out The King's Breakfast mushroom spores in the Pamogo Forest.

She just wants enough money for rent and food, and to take care of her cat.

Same tho. I have never related to a main character in a novel harder.

Sarah's fears and anxieties are also ones unique to trans women. She fears being the victim of the transphobic California police, much like any woman would, but she also has anxieties about fitting in amongst cis women (queer or otherwise). There's an undercurrent of dread about her character in almost every situation she's in; of being tense around men for their abundant and off-putting 'maleness', but also fear of rejection from cisgender women for her own existence within 'their' spaces.

She is the victim of being a woman at the hands of men, and treated as hostile for being a man in the eyes of women.

That's too relatable.

And then there's stuff that didn't work for me

These are mostly nitpicks. While I hope they don't dissuade you from checking Moonflow out, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention them.

The sapphic 'yannistocratic' women's cult of Mother Moonflow, who make up most of the characters in the book, is kind of messy and anachronistic. They're a pseudo-religious cult of women who've all taken on new names, living together in a commune in the woods, all working to bring about a new world order through the birth of a divinely feminine baby, born not of man, who will be the coming of their goddess The Green Lady. It's leader is a free love espousing hippie woman who listens to Orinoco Flow on repeat.

This works on paper, but because its inspirations are primarily rooted in cults (and cult murders) of the 60's and 70's, it clashes with a lot of the modern TERF slang that gets used towards the end.

The cult works logistically in the story, but it feels thematically and tonally disconnected. It sometimes reads almost like parody. Maybe it is, because it often is funny and ridiculous.

But there's a tonal whiplash that follows it after a particularly gruesome moment that kicks off the third act.

In the end, I think the cult's whole conception kinda works. The details just don't pass the vibe test for me.

A novel most inspiring

I really liked this book. It's a breezy read, it has some genuinely horrifying moments, and it tickles the fancy of a perv like me.

More than that, it's enormously inspiring to see a fellow author and creator who works in kink spaces like these put out a real ass horror novel that can hold its own with bigger works of fiction in that space.

Bitter Karella is an inspiration. Most folks who've dabbled in expansion kink and fat f*tish content get pigeon holed into it, despite being enormously talented with a lot of range. We're told that our particular brand of 'sexy' can never make for good fiction, let alone mainstream fiction.

Seeing her do it, and do it so well, makes me want to give getting a novel published another go.

And for that, I am deeply thankful.

-Miss Indulgence