Literary Review

Review: 'Of Beasts' by M. Jane Worma

In a world of fractured faiths and feral wants, 'Of Beasts' traces the perilous pursuit of a life wholly claimed.

Neil Czeszejko

26 Apr 2025 — 2 min read

In Of Beasts, horror and romance entwine into a living force, breathing life into a taut tale of a young, imposing pastor and the teenage Antichrist who keeps him teetering on the brink of madness.

Worma tells this story in straightforward prose touched with understated grace, and the book’s brisk length gives it the pulse of a dark fable, echoing religious lore often frayed by too-literal readings.

In fact, the friction between the literal and the unspoken grows increasingly bestial, much like the struggle between dictated paths and the resolve to think and want for oneself. That silent ache hums through the story, turning from abstraction into flesh, then shaping itself into something savored with a bodily hunger.

The subtlety of its delivery makes Of Beasts quite singular. Sex, gore, and violence are ever-present, but so are devotion, passion, tenderness, and silent dread.

The weave of these forces creates a quietly thrumming surface, hinting at the contortions of the human condition that could easily be unraveled further. And yet, the story’s length feels precisely right. It never slackens its grip, carrying both men to the lip of possibility with a measured gait.

Along the way, the fantastical and the real merge and tear apart with increasing irregularity, warping our sense of time, feeling, meaning, and the very idea of willful existence.

The tale is neither gory nor saccharine, neither bleak nor soothing. It dwells in the liminal spaces where thought itself first comes trembling into being.

In the end, Of Beasts lingers along the margins of afterthought—not with bombast, but with the slow, creeping certainty that something fundamental has shifted beneath the surface.

Worma captures the volatility of faith, flesh, and longing with a precision that feels both elemental and startlingly new. Every glance, every touch, every transgression beats with hidden consequence in this slender, fevered story—a debut that doesn't just promise more, but demands it.

An advance copy was provided by CLASH Books.