Heartless

After an angry breakup with her boyfriend, 19-year-old Jo Hall blacks out and wakes up on a gurney, surrounded by dead girls. She manages to free herself and trek through the Colorado snow back to her college dorm. Oddly, she can’t feel the cold, and she soon realizes the full horror of her condition: chalky skin, dehydrated flesh, a scarred torso “held together by rusted silver staples,” and oozing green goo. Jo looks dead, must be electrically charged to keep from running down, and is falling apart, physically and mentally. She sets out to find out who is responsible for a condition she hopes is reversible with the enthusiastic help of best friend Lucy and ex-boyfriend Eli. More Scooby-Doo than Mary Shelley, the novel’s frequent attempts at dark humor fall flat (“He’s always had a sensitive stomach,” quips Jo when Eli vomits after learning she’s undead), and readers will likely spot the villains a mile away. Newcomer Rhyne has created a sympathetic heroine dealing with some serious body horror, but muddled motivations and predictable hijinks mar this awkward homage to Frankenstein. Ages 13–up. (May)