Nothing Tastes as Good: A Novel
He finally got the body he wanted.
Now he’s hungry for something worse.
The nationally bestselling author of The Paleontologist and A History of Fear returns with a spine-tingling new thriller about a weight loss treatment with terrifying side effects.
Retail worker Emmett Truesdale has never fit the Southern California mold of six-pack, suntanned masculinity. Over three hundred pounds, he carries the weight of his childhood trauma and millennial ennui around his waist and in his soul. After trying every diet under the sun, he remains stuck—in his dead-end job, in love, and in his body.
Desperate for help, he enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight loss product called Obexity. The treatment is as horrifying as the results are miraculous and as Emmett sheds pounds at superhuman speed, every part of his life improves overnight.
Unfortunately, Obexity comes with some killer side effects, including lost stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. Worse, people who were cruel to him have started disappearing and when the police warn of a cannibalistic killer on the loose, he fears that Obexity is turning him into a monster. But how can he give it up now that people are finally starting to treat him like he’s human?
Nerve-racking, sinister, and at times surreal, Nothing Tastes as Good is an unputdownable thriller that combines the body horror and social commentary of The Substance with the best of Stephen King and keeps you guessing until the final page.
Now he’s hungry for something worse.
The nationally bestselling author of The Paleontologist and A History of Fear returns with a spine-tingling new thriller about a weight loss treatment with terrifying side effects.
Retail worker Emmett Truesdale has never fit the Southern California mold of six-pack, suntanned masculinity. Over three hundred pounds, he carries the weight of his childhood trauma and millennial ennui around his waist and in his soul. After trying every diet under the sun, he remains stuck—in his dead-end job, in love, and in his body.
Desperate for help, he enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight loss product called Obexity. The treatment is as horrifying as the results are miraculous and as Emmett sheds pounds at superhuman speed, every part of his life improves overnight.
Unfortunately, Obexity comes with some killer side effects, including lost stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. Worse, people who were cruel to him have started disappearing and when the police warn of a cannibalistic killer on the loose, he fears that Obexity is turning him into a monster. But how can he give it up now that people are finally starting to treat him like he’s human?
Nerve-racking, sinister, and at times surreal, Nothing Tastes as Good is an unputdownable thriller that combines the body horror and social commentary of The Substance with the best of Stephen King and keeps you guessing until the final page.
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Community Reviews
Published on Peeking Between the Pages (https://peekingbetweenthepages.com/2026/04/nothing-tastes-as-good-by-luke-dumas-audiobook.html)
I haven’t read anything by Luke Dumas before but I will be. Nothing Tastes as Good hooked me in from the first page and never let go. It was a creepy ride reminiscent of Stephen King’s Thinner, which is one of my favorite movies.
Emmett weighs over three hundred pounds and has tried everything to lose weight – if there is a diet out there, Emmett has tried it and failed. His childhood was no picnic and he still carries the trauma of it around with him which very likely hasn’t helped with his weight problem. Emmett is tired of being ‘that guy’ that is overlooked by people simply because of how he looks especially in his career. He feels if he could only lose weight his life would change.
At this point in his life he is really desperate and manages to get accepted into a weight loss trial for a drug called Obexity. Initially he questions his choice as the treatment he endures is far from pleasant but when the weight starts falling off of him he is ecstatic. All of a sudden every part of his life changes and for once people are actually looking at him, rather than past him. As time passes though Emmett notices some terrible side effects such as waking up not knowing where he’s been, or people he knows have gone missing – people who were not so nice to him in the past. What is happening to him – has he tuned into some monster?
I listened to the audiobook which is read by Graham Halstead, Ali Andre Ali, Raquel Beattie, Cassandra Campbell, and James Anderson Foster. All I can say is wow! This was an amazing audio experience and I enjoyed every minute!
While this book is a horror story it is also a book that invites you to think about the diet industry and the need to look a certain way to be accepted as well as how much of yourself you’re willing to sacrifice to get there. If you love a horror story a bit out of the ordinary like I do then pick up Nothing Tastes as Good. Highly recommended!
My appetite could not have prepared me for this completely unforgettable read. What begins as a story about food quickly turns into something far more complex and unsettling.
Nothing Taste as Good serves readers a 15-course meal on abuse, obesity, trauma, friendship, loyalty, family dynamics, social pressure, millennial struggles, weight loss, corporate greed, pharma, money, social media, relationships, acceptance, and crime. It is messy, uncomfortable, fascinating, and impossible to ignore.
The emotional experience of reading this book is a roller coaster. At times, I felt compassion for the characters. At other moments I felt deeply conflicted, even frustrated by them. That tension is exactly what makes the story so compelling. It refuses to let the reader settle into a single emotion.
The writing is hypnotic. I have never read something that made me gag, yet I am obsessed with this book. Few books manage to be this disturbing and this captivating at the same time.
When I finished, I felt that strange heaviness that only certain books leave behind. The kind where you know the story will stay with you long after the final page, and you almost wish you could experience the shock of reading it again for the first time.
A bold, unsettling, and unforgettable reading experience. I urge you to read this book; you will not regret it.
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