Reviews with content warning for Death - Woman, Eating

Original rating was 2.75 stars, but I made a statement at the beginning that if the book didn't live up to the review on the blurb ("What Stoker did for the vampire at the end of the nineteenth century, Claire Kohda does for it in our era" – TLS) I would on principle remove a full star from the final rating. Ergo, this book is a solid 1.75 stars.

I really wanted to like Woman, Eating. I was hoping for a fresh take on the vampire genre, and one that would rid it of the embarrassing modern legacy of contemporary vampiric romance and YA trash that, peace and love, spat on both the allure and legacy of the vampire that Camilla and Dracula started.

And listen. It's certainly not the worst book I've read, and by far it is not the worst vampire book I've read. I did, however, grow very tired of the trite and overused playbook of modern-take-on-a-genre-or-literary-classic that makes an attempt at mild social commentary, but ultimately leaves much to be desired within the realm of anything harsher than a "maybe colonialism bad 🧐 Are men who are misogynys and sex pests the REAL monsters 🤯🤯🤯". Like, girl, put some cunt into your undertones & overtones, and be just a touch bolder. Especially if you're going to plaster your book with reviews that praise your 'profoundness' and 'blistering' 'thought-provoking' work. The only 'blistering' part of this entire experience was from my eyes rolling out of their sockets from the over-used and uninspired mommy-daughter issues trope.

It's better than Twilight. That's not a hard bar to pass, though.

Content Warnings

legs_n_chins's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

There’s this interesting feeling I have of feeling fulfilled by how deeply I related to the story, but also feeling abruptly cut off because the resolution felt very underdone. Being mixed race myself, so much of Lydia’s thoughts and feelings and internal conflicts resonated with me: wanting desperately to connect to the side of her identity that she felt very isolated from, feeling removed from other people because of her identity, feeling like it had to be one or the other and never both. But something just didn’t fit right about the conclusion of these feelings, maybe because it felt sort of oddly sudden.

I definitely recognize all the pieces throughout the story that add up to Lyd’s ultimate resolution. Experiencing food through YouTube videos of other people cooking and eating, the sexual encounter, moments of purely feminine fear and discomfort; it’s a definite clear through line that Kohda communicates very well. But I guess it just felt odd to me that she finds some measure of peace immediately after attempting to completely annihilate one side of herself. It just feels like there was more work to do in the aftermath. Her mental state was very unhealthy and there’s so much emphasis on the lingering effects of her childhood; I think it’s not so much that her resolution felt out of nowhere and more just that it felt suddenly very easy. To me, anyway, as someone who’s come to a happy place in understanding my own identity, but still deals with a lot of the ripple effects of how conflicted I’ve felt throughout my life. I understand the story had to come to an end at some point, and this conclusion is likely stronger because it doesn’t deal with the ongoing process that is living with acceptance and maintaining that feeling, but I just felt it was abrupt,

Allllllllllll of that aside, I really enjoyed Kohda’s writing. While at times it did seem to meander through Lyd’s inner monologue, it was still entertaining to read and relevant to the topic. It lent more personality to Lyd and gave us a better sense of her voice and character. So even in the places I thought were a little overwritten, it was more like a character choice than a lack of ability to self-edit. I also liked the how Kohda managed to balance very straightforward word choice with a sort of lyrical style that really fit into this world of art that she was building. I’ll admit I’m kind of dense about art, so I don’t know if all of the metaphors made through the art totally clicked for me, but I did like what Kohda was saying through the lens of art as a profession and art as a commercial material. I do wish we’d gotten more background on what Lyd had wanted to do while in art school and more about the pieces she’d made and what had compelled her, but I recognize that wasn’t the real central point for her character. It just felt like it could’ve given her more of another dimension (not that she was two dimensional in any way, just that it would’ve been nice to see more).

I really liked the other characters, what little we did see of them. Despite their rather brief inclusions, aside from Ben, the other artists really felt well thought out and fully realized. They were warm the way a good character can feel and they fit right in their surroundings and in Lyd’s story. I had hoped Lyd and Shakti might have more interaction, especially as she seemed like an important piece to the line of Lyd being forced to reconcile feminine experiences as a human, but it didn’t feel like anything was really left out in that case. Just due to the timeline of the story, it makes much more sense that the interaction there was left more surface level.

And on that note, I also liked how Kohda handled those moment of feminine fear and discomfort. Being sexualized, being preyed upon. They’re authentic experiences that are shared among far too many women, but they’re not escalated to feeling like exploitation just to get a point across. The point is made just fine through very short, seemingly brief, encounters. Lyd can’t help but linger on them, feel shame about them, etc. And I think that makes it all the better for commenting on the human condition and relating it to Lyd’s character struggles: any level of predation is scary and upsetting. And it’s an unfortunate human experience forced upon women and female presenting people.

Overall, everything came together so well in this book. It was a really impactful read for me and, happily, in a style I really love. I love a good, meaty character narrative and this definitely fit the bill. For how short it is, it covers a lot of ground and I think that’s a great testament to Kohda’s skill. I just wish the conclusion didn’t leave me feeling a bit empty.

Content Warnings

bengami's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I adored this book, the lower rating is for multiple parts where the main character would tell not show, which was my biggest grief with this book. But I loved the exploration of vampirism & immortal loneliness, it read as an uncomfortable & bloody coming of age/a thought experiment on what vampires would actually be like, and the mother-daughter dynamic was well-executed and beautiful. If you feel like you are losing interest in part two, continue to part three, that’s when I really started enjoying the book.

Content Warnings

trashpossum's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Content Warnings

okgm's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I finished this book around 3am the other night, and though I knew I had so, so many things to say, I also knew I had to give myself time to marinate in the large emotions that the story provoked. I read the reviews after reading and felt that I was a part of a very niche target audience, as I think many readers went into it with the same expectations: vampire baddie tries and fails to assimilate into humanity, a lot of fangs, a lot of "eating". Though that is not exactly what we got, I think that the story that it ended up being is something that I did not know I needed.

As context, I am biracial black queer person who grew up virtually fatherless and raised by a white almond mother. I also had a pretty viscous vampire era in my late teens, meaning: this book hit all of the marks for me.

The writing is mostly character thought and less plot, and yes: the main character is a vampire, but is that necessarily the point? And is that why the message was missed by a lot of presumably white readers? Claire, the woman she is, questions what it means to colonize a person versus the colonization of a body through the allegory of vampirism. The main character's mother, whose storyline is never shared fully as it is not information that Lydia is aware of, is a Malaysian woman who loses her life during the colonization of her home land and spends the rest of her existence as an "almost" god-fearing woman. Through her longing to be close to humanity she brings herself closer to white femininity, as if the only way to be a human as a woman (vampire) of color is to mirror the white woman in appearance and likability. Her daughter, Lydia, who is born a human and transformed soon after her birth is passed down this self-hatred. She longs to know of her human and half Japanese father whose death goes unexplained (potentially eaten by her mother, another nod towards eating the byproducts of those who once harmed your people/culture), not only to feel closer to her humanity, but also her heritage. They survive off a pig blood alone, as her mother feels that this is what they, as self-believing monsters, deserve to survive off of alone. When Lydia leaves the shackles of her mother's proximity, she feels both a sense of freedom and a self-grappling with all that she has ever been taught: that she is a monstrous thing that does not deserve love, friendship, or to feel fully satisfied in the things that she eats. As she begins to discover the joys of following her dreams, finding friendship, and experiencing attraction for the first time, she is consistently called back and haunted by the voice of self-hatred: a voice that belongs to her mother. Through her journey alone, she is in close proximity of entitled men who seem to claim her as their own--through hungry eyes, unwanted touch, and emotional manipulation. She spends this time in near starvation, hoping that if she resists any blood at all, she could starve this "demonic" presence from her body. In a way, longing to rebirthed as a normal girl who can eat the foods of her culture and know what it truly means to be Malaysian and Japanese. In the end, she finally eats a person who had taken advantage of her through money, power, and claim and is able to experience her culture through his memories of eating the foods of her ancestors. She is manic in these final moments, feeling connected to her mind and body. Knowing that the only way to feel like herself, feel closer to humanity, is to fucking eat.

What a beautiful take on vampires. I had never imagined this perspective, of food being a vital love language of your culture and never being able to experience that. To lack connection to your mother because that level of care is not able to be offered to you. To finally eat your colonizers and feel closer to your people in that reclamation of power. To eat the rich as someone who consistently feels powerless and trapped in the need to make yourself mall in attempts to save those around you from the voice inside you. Eat to feel good, eat to know yourself and others, eat to survive. Eat to be human, fully and lovingly.

Content Warnings

charlesalexander's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

hate. all she does is whine. like STFU idc!!! worst thing she does is homewreck. SHE’S NOT A GIRL’S GIRL. love interest is such a nothing man with no personality. this book should be arrested for being boring. omg it was a punishment to finish it. ok thanks 👍

Content Warnings

alexamitchell92's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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