ITCH! by Gemma Amor
Hodder & Stoughton (January 2026)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent
With a title like ITCH!, you know Gemma Amor’s bringing the bug horror. I was prepared to spend this read feeling like something was biting me — and I did. I wasn’t prepared for the real soul-crushing heart of this LGBTQIA2+ novel. ITCH! led me to expect bugs and body horror. I never expected to cry.
After a recent breakup ended with a brick to her head, Josie’s left London to hole up in her father’s vacationer flat, a teensy apartment in the rural English town where she was raised. The novel begins on the day after the Devil’s March, a tradition in this town on the edge of the Forest of Dean, involving masks, an effigy of a straw queen, and all the pageantry a small English town can muster. On her way to work at the local pub, Josie discovers the partly-decomposed body of a young woman who looks strikingly like her. It’s covered with bugs. She falls into it, and the body horror begins.
If you have a bug squick, stay away. I have a strong stomach for everything but parasites, and parts of this novel left me standing up to shake out my pant legs (and paranoid about my knickers, as this book calls them). Seriously shudder-inducing, bugs-under-the-skin horror lies herein. Consider yourself warned.
But for all its cringe-inducing, maggots-in-yes-there-that-part (I’m still shuddering), Josie’s story has serious depth. It’s a real accomplishment to pull off this level of body horror with so much emotional heft, and ITCH! manages it. Josie’s girlfriend has left her broken in more ways than physically. Since her mother died when she was a child, her father has been distant, emotionally unavailable, and cold. This is a woman who’s grown up without love, and Amor does a masterful job of painting the particular kind of loneliness that comes from never having a safety net. To make matters worse, Josie’s dad believes that she and her abusive girlfriend should “work it out” because surely, there’s been a misunderstanding — brick to the head and restraining order be damned.
Josie’s trapped in her childhood town with a dad who doesn’t want her there (not even allowed to live in his house), working a dead-end job cleaning the local inn. Her only company comes from its proprietor, witchy-earthy Angela. Bugs aside, this novel hurts.
In addition to its emotional heft, ITCH! also has a distinct sense of place. The novel is unapologetically English — American publishers maintained its language and terminology — with small towns huddled around inns, dark forests, folk traditions, and reticent townsfolk who still know everyone’s business. While it’s not quite folk horror, the novel carries a lot of its hallmarks, including isolation and rural cultishness, and fans of the genre will enjoy it.
ITCH! is not only English, but the best possible kind of queer. The main character, and maybe a few others, are queer. Josie’s abusive partner was a woman. But none of this matters in the grand sweep of narrative, and queerness is treated as a basic, unexciting fact rather than a major plot point. There’s no overarching romantic plot and no homophobia (not even from Josie’s jerk of a dad). Characters simply prefer their own gender to the opposite. It’s refreshing to read a queer novel that doesn’t treat being LGBTQIA2+ as fodder for either romance or hatred. Those craving a novel that reflects their lived experience without one or the other should take note.
I didn’t see the end coming — particularly the final oh God they did what — and the well-drawn, believable characters kept me turning pages; the buggy squicks happen regularly, but never get repetitive. Body horror aside, Amor paints an unforgettable portrait of loneliness and emotional wreckage. Is her main character reliable? Josie keeps you guessing in the best possible way. Unrepentedly English, gloriously queer, ITCH! brings body horror with an emotional heft that will leave you puddled on the floor. Bring tissues (and maybe some bug spray).
