Would I risk becoming an unspeakable biological nightmare if it meant being 25 again? The Dorians made that question significantly harder to answer than it should be. Nick Cutter takes the fear of aging, throws in experimental science and some deeply questionable biological fuckery, and slowly turns what sounds like a miracle into exactly the kind of disgusting nightmare you expect from him.

Five elderly people who have reached the end of their lives are offered an impossible alternative: participate in an experimental treatment that could reverse the aging process and give them their youth back.

They agree and travel to an isolated island in the Canadian wilderness, where the experiment works.

Like, actually works.

Their bodies begin getting younger. Illnesses disappear. Strength returns. Suddenly these people who had accepted that their lives were ending are being given another chance at everything they thought they'd lost.

And because this is Nick Cutter, obviously something horrific is happening underneath all of it.

What I really liked about this one was the question at the center of it. It's easy to look at some insane experimental treatment and think absolutely fucking not, but these aren't healthy people risking their lives because they want to look younger. They're people who have already accepted death. When the alternative is dying anyway, suddenly the risk doesn't seem quite as ridiculous.

And once the treatment starts working, that question gets even more complicated. What would getting your youth back actually do to you? Would you become the person you were before? Would you make different choices? And once you've gotten a second chance at life, how much would you be willing to sacrifice to keep it?

The body horror takes its time getting here, but when Cutter finally lets everything go wrong, holy shit.

The biological side of the horror was easily my favorite part. Bodies heal, change, adapt, and eventually start doing things bodies absolutely were not designed to do. The same organism responsible for giving these people their lives back also has its own drive to survive, and those two interests do not necessarily remain compatible.

My biggest issue was the pacing. This is definitely more of a slow burn than I expected from Cutter. A lot of time is spent with the experiment and the characters adjusting to their new bodies before the horror completely takes over. I appreciated getting to know them, but there were stretches where I was very much sitting there like, okay Nick, when are you going to make me regret having a body?

Eventually, he does.

And once everything starts unraveling, the book becomes the nasty biological nightmare I was waiting for.