Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

I was hoping to find that this was the weird horror novel of my dreams, but unfortunately it was simply not meant to be. I found that this book ended up jumping around far too much for anything cohesive to come out of it, and the different mediums confused it more than made it fun. The newspaper sections were good, but they just couldn't save the rest of the book.

It was like this book was trying to be House of Leaves but just couldn't get there, with too many ideas all at once and just a huge amount of mindless content across the story. I would have found this book a lot better with a coherent thread. The cover and the concept really drew me in, but the payoff was just not what I was looking for.

Thank you Netgalley for the arc of this novel. I will make this short and sweet. Although this should have been a hit for me, it wasnt. The premise is super interesting and the cover...my goodness the cover! I am a sucker for eyeballs. 10 out of 10. However, where this book fell short for me was its pacing and its readability. I just didnt like it as much as I hoped. 2.5 STARS

I spent about 70% of this book thinking “what is going on?” And that this is a more confusing version of the night vale. BUT once things start clicking into place after that it was easy to finish, it seemed a lot of unnecessaryness in the beginning but the end made a great start to what could be an amazing story.

Noah and malachia are from opposite worlds, literally. Noah is just looking for a new job, nothing special, but from the strange interview to the terrifying first day on the job he quickly realises he doesn’t know anything about what the world entails. Malachia is in the city of silence when she finds herself completely alone, she searches for answers from a talking true deity which leads her to through unimaginable circumstances and eventually into Noah’s world.

I received this as an ARC from NetGalley

It was… interesting. I enjoy comedy horror books but this wasn’t the best. The two main storylines were intriguing but jarring, and didn’t fit overly well with each other, I'm afraid to say

Unapologetically weird and funny. I don't think this will be a book for everyone, but Jordan swings for the fences here, and I think it lands really well. Two main character arcs that seem incredibly disparate and slowly coalesce, and interspersed with all of this is a selection of newspaper articles and ads which tell their own weird stories. Body horror, humor, and general strangeness create a story that is very ambitious.

I do think the epub so formatted in such a way that it makes the story a little harder to follow, and I'm looking forward to rereading in print because I think the mixed media aspects and footnotes will be a little easier to wrangle on paper. But I enjoyed it nonetheless and I truly appreciate the author's desire to just be weird.

This book was really interesting. Though confusing at times, the description and body horror was really captivating and it felt really easy to get lost in the two main characters' journeys. Lots of genuinely spine-chilling moments.
I would recommend this to anyone interested in experimental horror!

I did notice some issues with formatting and footnotes, though not sure if this was just from the way the e-book downloaded to my Kindle.

Wow, this was so weird and fun to read! It has that combination of cosmic horror and amusing everydayness that I'm used to in something like Welcome to Nightvale. But this is definitely more queer, more violent, and more evocatively out-there. Some cool use of experimental visual elements to the text, like House of Leaves. Really just its own neat, messed-up thing though. If any of this sounds up your alley, check it out!

Great modern Horror story very unique.
Couldn't stop reading.
The characters where very enticing.

Well. That was something. It took me an age to get through this novella and, honestly, it was a struggle. The whole thing felt like a fever dream which didn’t make sense, the use of two protagonists was fine but that’s the nicest thing I can say. This novella felt like it needed to go back in the oven for a lot longer before release. One word. Don’t.

This book was quite enjoyable, but I found myself wishing it were longer. As a fan of splatterpunk, I was excited to dive in, and while it delivered much of what I was hoping for, it also fell short in some areas.

The writing was excellent, it was descriptive and gritty, perfectly matching the book’s tone.

However, I wanted more from the story. I was hooked from the first few pages, but the book’s brevity meant it felt like it rushed through the plot faster than I would have liked. The choppy, short format left me craving more depth and exploration, which affected my overall rating.

Overall, it was a fun and engaging read, but I’d love to see a full-length version that allows for more space to develop and flesh out the story.

The book I ended up dnfing as I just could not get through it I get what the author was trying to do however I found the story’s to be over complicated and hard to follow however I feel like with some fine turning their writing could be amazing!

"Hot Singles in Your Area" by Jordan Shiveley is a brilliantly inventive and darkly humorous exploration of modern dating and online culture. Shiveley's sharp wit and keen observational skills are on full display, creating a narrative that is as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. The book deftly balances satire with genuine moments of introspection, offering readers a fresh and nuanced perspective on the search for connection in the digital age. Shiveley's characters are vividly portrayed, each bringing their own unique quirks and insights to the story. With its clever writing and insightful commentary, "Hot Singles in Your Area" is a standout read that will resonate with anyone who has ever navigated the complexities of relationships in today's world. This book is a must-read for fans of contemporary fiction looking for a blend of humor and depth.

DNF 25% in

Unfortunately i didn’t know where this book was going, i wasn’t intrigued and i couldn’t really follow the plot since i was reminded in my mind that those were words on paper, I in fact had to reread some sentences and still i didn’t understand a thing.

I initially requested this arc because the plot was really interesting and i was in an horror mood but i was disappointed, maybe this is just how i felt and somebody else will love this arc.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this e-arc and i’m sad i couldn’t finish this book.

I really did not enjoy this book, and rating it is difficult. I can see where this might be someone's favorite, but to me the writing style was too confusing. The digital publication of the book interjected mid-sentence with images and graphics, making it difficult to follow a train of thought. While the newspaper clippings were interesting, they were the only good part of the book. It is unfortunate to say, as I think this had great potential, but the execution was poor and the structure very convoluted and needlessly hard.

Hot Singles in Your Area is a debut novel that emphasizes body horror and centers queer characters. It’s author Jordan Shiveley got their start on X (formerly known as Twitter) with an account that appears to be connected to the book (?). Truthfully everything in this review is a bit of a question mark because there was so much of the book that I did not understand.
Hot Singles in Your Area alternates between two main characters—the first character introduced is Noah, who pursues a job listing for the media company Printed Matter and is immediately struck with the strangeness of the position he is being offered. The other main character is Malachia, who comes from a magical world where she seldom comes across other humans. One day she finds that everyone in this world has vanished, and the two main characters find their paths crossing despite their very different starting points.
Down to the sentence level, this book does not make sense. Sentences reference information that has not been revealed to the reader, the footnotes are confusing and miss the mark of what seems to be intended to be humorous. There is also the integration of the job listings printed by the fictional company of the novel that are not placed strategically by rather are pages upon pages that split up sentences in the middle of a thought.
While I love the experimental format of their book, it was a risk that could have had a high payoff but ultimately failed miserably. I would love to see a similar format explored in a book where the footnotes, rather than being tangential commentary, actually lean into the academic format they mimic. I could imagine a story more along the lines of Penance by Eliza Clark that uses an archival theme being better suited for this structure.

f you are looking for weird, I guess this is weird. The entire book felt like a perfectly normal and boring person taking a selfie making a stupid face and captioning it "I'm sooooooooo weird." I definitely enjoyed Noah's story more than Malachia's. I can tell Shiveley was going for a lighthearted, cheeky narrative, which is great in a lot of books (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy cones to mind), but it didn't do anything to help this book.

thank you to Jordan Shiveley, netgalley and Unbound for this digital ARC.

i read this on my kindle and found myself very confused most of the time. the formatting on the kindle could be improved and the readability of the alternating chapters as well, especially the ones centered around Malachia.

other than that, this has great potential and a great read for anyone that might enjoy more unique and abstractly written books!

First of all thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and the author for allowing me to read this!

I went into this book very optimistic however my brain just didn’t enjoy reading this sadly. I can say my e-arc format could have played in the experience of reading this as it jumbled things quite a bit making it harder to follow along.

I can say sometimes I enjoy a book with footnotes but honestly I don’t see the need for them here. Especially for what the author was using them for. It just added to the confusion I felt while reading it.

I really wanted to enjoy this but I’m not sure this one was for me.

Weird, but it works. Nothing like what I was expecting from the cover (which I LOVE). The newspaper clippings were hard to read on my Paperwhite, but once zooming in, it was better.

I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher in return for an honest review. This review is based entirely on my own thoughts and feelings.

Overall rating : 2*
Writing skill : 2*
Noah's story: 3*
Malachia's story: 1*


I normally like a 'weird' book, ones that are completely out of the norm, but this just felt like it was being strange for the sake of it.
Noah's story was intriguing and I could follow it and appreciate what the author was trying to do.
Malachia's story however was just too confusing, I had to re-read some sentences many times and still couldn't process what they meant. There were about 10 pages with one word repeated over the whole page, and I just felt it was unnecessary.
I felt like we didn't need the stories to alternate each chapter, they could have been written as two separate short stories, one after the other. with a combined chapter at the end?! I don't know, maybe I just missed the point.
Disappointed I dint click with this book, as I really wanted to, but it wasn't for me.