Decomposition Book by Sara Van Os
HarperCollins (May 19, 2026)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent
Loneliness and desperation ooze from Sara van Os’s Decomposition Book: A Novel. Os paints a compelling, bleak, and darkly humorous portrait of two women in crisis: Ava, hopelessly lost in the Adirondacks during a weekend hiking trip with two work friends, and Savannah, a Gen Z college student desperate to call herself “on a break” from school. Holed up in a secluded lake house after the stunning betrayal of her best friend, Savannah finds Ava’s corpse during a walk in the woods.
She examines the body. She finds a battered notebook, which contains the tale of Ava’s final months in the wilderness. Os weaves the narratives together; the story of Ava’s inevitable death parallels Savannah’s descent into madness. She knows she ought to call the cops. But the corpse — Ava — seems so lonely. Doesn’t she deserve to lay in peace for a little while? It couldn’t hurt to wait a little bit. Could it? Os makes the reader almost-but-not-quite buy into her delusion. We understand Savannah’s reasoning. We’re with her. She’s messy and confused, hurting and lonely, so her reasoning seems almost sane.
Decomposition Book is a tale of two lost women. Ava’s scrabbling to survive in the woods and slowly starving; Savannah’s doing her best to figure out her life — is she gay? Is she loveable? Should she take another ambien and drink? The real, wrenching sorrow of this novel comes from Ava’s tale of love and loss; next to the disasters that befall her, Savannah’s problems could seem overblown. But they’re no less real for her. Os gives us a study in comparative misery, and it’s clear that Savannah’s problems are as urgent for her as Ava’s desperation not to stave.
As Savannah keeps reading, Ava’s corpse, and the concept of Ava she’s created, become a kind of free therapy. The strength in this novel: we buy it. 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.
A study in two women’s efforts to save themselves, Decomposition Book has a lot to say about suffering, what people do to survive, and how desperate people cling to whatever they can. Heartbreaking in the best possible way.
