Book: I Am Made of Death
Author: Kelly Andrew
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Year: 2025
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Following the death of his father, Thomas Walsh had to grow up quickly, taking on odd jobs to help pay his gravely ill mother’s medical bills. When he’s offered a highly paid position as an interpreter for an heiress who exclusively signs, Thomas – the hearing child of a Deaf adult – jumps at the opportunity.
But the job is not without its challenges.
A selective-mute, Vivienne Farrow hasn’t said a word in years – not since going missing in Red Rock Canyon when she was four years old. No one knows quite what happened to her out in the dark. They only know that the sound of her voice is now as deadly as a poison. Anyone who hears her speak suffers a horrible death.
Vivienne is desperate for a way to regain control of bother her voice and her body. Because the face staring out of the mirror isn’t hers. It’s something with teeth.
Thankfully, she’s finally found someone who claims to be able to perform a surgical exorcism. She just needs to find a way to get rid of Thomas first. But Thomas can’t afford to walk away, nor is he willing to abandon the mysterious girl he’s falling for, no matter what dark powers threaten to swallow them both whole.”

Review : I Am Made of Death was the perfect antidote for both the book hole I found myself in after finishing The Devils and the disgust I felt over my last unfortunate one star review copy, Anji Kills a King. I needed something to grip me, and I Am Made of Death (IAMOD) did just that. I started and finished IAMOD in just under 48 hours, and had I just a tiny bit more free time available, I would have cut that time way down. Andrew created an absolute page turning, unputdownable read and I am eternally grateful for that.

As a child, Andrew lost her hearing at just 4 years old and it becomes evident throughout this book that Andrew has woven her own story into this dark fantasy, frankly, the personal connection, both to her own hearing loss and to her marriage with a Hearing individual, makes for a super compelling read. Told from the alternating perspectives of both Thomas, 18 year old interpreter for Vivienne Farrow, paid in unspeakably large sums of money by her step-father, Philip, and Vivienne, Thomas’ peer and wealthy heiress to Philip’s fortune who has remained largely unspeaking for most of her adult life. Following a tragic accident in the desert while a toddler, Vivienne has had the uncanny ability to kill with just the sound of her voice, no words necessary. Because of this unfortunate ability, Vivienne has mostly locked herself away, ashamed, afraid of her own voice, and more than anything, afraid of the monster she sees in the mirror. Both metaphor and reality, Vivienne is not merely the body from which a killer voice emerges, but the host to a parasitic demon; a demon who saved her life as a toddler, who continues to save her life as an adult, but for whom the price of existence is murder.

We enter IAMOD to find Vivienne mid-way into the process of entrapping a medical student into performing a highly risky procedure in which he will attempt to surgically remove the supernatural parasite from her body. Unfortunately, Thomas’ ever present self, and how little he knows or understands about the situation, stands between Vivienne and release from the creature who plagues her body and soul. *Spoilers Ahead!* Through the course of the book, told in three parts, we see an ever-diminishing gap between Vivienne’s hatred of Thomas and Thomas’ confusion over Vivienne’s situation. Andrew has written such a perfect foray into the sweetness of first love, it felt both intense and silly all at the same time, I found their quasi-friendship turned love so palpable and enjoyable. Beyond the slow growing love between Thomas and Vivienne, we also find a whole world of occult and magic intermingled with the world of high-stakes finance, law, and even medicine – it makes the somewhat dizzying world Andrew has created feel like maybe, just maybe, it could be part of our world.

Where things took a stumble, however, is in the telling. I can’t get a grasp on whether IAMOD is going to be the first in a series or whether it’s a planned stand-alone novel and that determines how I feel things were wrapped up and explained. If, as I hope, IAMOD is the first in a series, I think Andrew left plenty of room for questions to eventually be resolved and cleared up in a second, or even third, book. There were messy threads left incomplete by the time it was all said and done and as I closed the book I found I had more questions than answers. If this is to be a stand-alone novel, Andrew could have done a much neater job of tying up loose ends and that’s where I struggle with the final rating – there are too many things that went unsaid and too much that needed to be addressed for this to be the end. It’s possible this will be a one-off, but I think that would do a disservice to the characters Andrew has begun to built and a disservice to the broader aspects of the story that were never fully resolved. While IAMOD doesn’t end on a cliffhanger, it almost might as well with how many loose threads Andrew left behind and that’s why I feel this must be the introduction to a bigger world yet to be revealed through a sequel. I guess it’s yet to be seen! Either way, the loose ends as they were, this book was still so compelling, so well written, and so enjoyable that I had no choice but to give it 4 out of 5 stars. I think you’ll understand why when you read it.

Advice : If you enjoy a nail biter, enemies to lovers, dark fantasy, or a sweet first love story, this will definitely be for you!