"Decomposition Book" by Sara van Os

An audio book. Chapters alternate between Savanna's story and sections from Ava's journal.

Ava writes in her journal about how she, Megan and Chad got lost in the woods on a camping holiday. Megan and Chad argue. Chad earned 4 times what Megan did. She was hoping to ask Chad for a rise. She'd invited Ava along so she'd feel safer. Ava never found out if Megan was gay. She's the only one remaining.

In Jan 2023 Savanna, 18, (taking a break, living with only her cat Zelda because of mental problems, comforting herself with drink and porn, having appointments with a therapist) finds a dead body in the woods. On the body there's a journal written by Ava. She imagines that Michelle (her ex best-friend) is there and talks to her. She muses over the body, wonders if she, Savanna, had been the murderer. She visits the body often, studies the changes in it, slowly reading the journal. She comes out to the corpse. She finds the Twitter account of Ava and creates a character profile. She sees that the Megan/Ava relationship is like the Michelle/Savanna one. Then the corpse starts to stink.

After 2 weeks, Savanna's woken by Ava, who accepts she's a ghost, a solid one. Michelle says that Savanna's hoping that Ava's "developed enough of a Stockholm Syndrome to love you back"

Chad started adopting the male roles - hunting and climbing trees. Weeks pass. He eats a toadstool and dies. Ava and Megan sleep togeter through grief, then have sex. Megan says she come on the holiday intending to seduce Ava. Megan gets ill and dies.

Savanna agonises [too long and often] about whether to report the finding of the corpse. Ava's interested in seeing her own corpse. Ava and Savanna have sex, partly so that Savanna can decide whether she's a lesbian. [It's a too long sex scene]. Savanna finally reveals the event which pusheed her over the edge. Savanna had confessed her love to Michelle, who arranged for a boy to have sex with her against her will.

At the end the sections from Ava's journal sync with Savanna's reading of them. We learn that Ava ate Megan.

I was worried that it would be a standard "lost in the forest" plot with people dying one by one - with bear attacks, cannibalism, etc. Actually, that part of the book is rather standard, but that's offset by Savanna's tale where a corpse and an embodied ghost help with a troubled person's mental problems. Would Savanna's mother really be comfortable with Savanna being alone for so long, even though she's tracking Savanna's phone? Would Savanna really have had the internal resources to perform self-therapy?

Other reviews

• Esmay Rosalyne (Decomposition Book uses the stages of decomposition to gradually expose more layers of rot, pain, trauma, and emotional messiness. ... There is no denying that Decomposition Book will not be a book for everyone, but I am honestly so glad I gave it a shot despite my wariness because this is just a macabre masterpiece in my eyes. It’s unapologetically weird, unconventional, feminist, queer, messy, and morbidly funny, and I love how it just embraces every unhinged corner of its premise and somehow turns rot, loneliness, ghosts, and emotional breakdowns into something so beautifully bittersweet.)
• kirkus review (The book targets a Gen Z audience; slang like “sus” and “slaps” can be jarring, though some pop-culture moments (“Bobby Flay pulls out crispy rice again. The judges eat it up, literally. He wins, again. The crowd boos”) land well.)
• Mahvesh Murad (The one part where some suspension of disbelief is required is that three adults with existing family, friends and colleagues are lost in the woods for many months with apparently no one being able to find them, or any trace of them. ... This is in turns a body horror thriller, a coming out and coming of age novel filled with queer longing, an examination of a debilitating invisible mental illness, and a young woman’s attempt at moving on from a trauma that she does not want to let define her. Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out who you really are, and sometimes it’s the ghosts of the people we wish we’d been who help us find ourselves.)
• Elizabeth Broadbent ( As Ava’s survival becomes more desperate, so does Savannah. Their stories make for an interesting juxtaposition, and they marry well, despite the dire circumstances of one and the easily dismissed nature of the other. How do you compare starving to death in the woods to a friend’s betrayal? You don’t, and that’s the novel’s point. You can’t.)