Reviews with content warning for Blood - A Certain Hunger

Such a fascinating book on weaponizing gender norms. The writing was superb! I loved the culinary themes in the book, it adds a certain sophistication to Dolores’ murderous actions that makes me almost admire this baddie of a woman.

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bbpettry's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

Summers really worked me out with this debut - I'm three years late as always, but damn! It's fun, its grotesque, its twisty and while this protagonist is deeply fascinating, there is no point in the narrative that is positioning for forgiveness. Dorothy Daniels is a violent murderer, and she tells us about that in tales of food and sex and plotting. It feels like Summers made this character by taking all the femme fatale career bitch attitude stuff from the 90's and took it all to its logical conclusion. A man-eater. A writer. A woman. Every time the writing was on the verge of losing me in too much gourmet musing (she is a food critic writing from prison, obviously she'd go on endless food tangents) she pulls it back with a raunchy one-liner or low brow tv reference (Green Acres being my fave.) Somehow with all this book is, one could describe it as a book about the power of friendship and you'd technically be right. Very misleading, but correct.
Not 5 because

while the end with Emma knowing all and staying loyal was fun, something about the end felt wanting? I wanted a bloodier end somehow, with her having escaped and maybe she's coming to eat you next kinda thing. But this isn't a horror novel, so maybe the end fits but was clumsy.

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peggy_racham's review against another edition

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5.0

"To eat people is to get the taste of a Titan. It’s infinite immortalization. It makes a god out of a woman."

Women's rights but more importantly women's wrongs.

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elizabethng2's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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officialdani's review against another edition

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dark reflective 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

3.25

The writing is overly pretentious, although I realize the character is pretentious. It gets a bit tiring at times, but really keeps you connected to the main character.

However, the more I read the more it kept me interested.

The descriptions of certain events are very graphic and disturbing. But that did make it a good October/Halloween read.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend this, but I also wouldn’t discourage someone from reading it (unless you really can’t read graphic content).

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shanelh's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-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

3.5

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racl's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

The best way I've found to describe the bulk of the book is that it reads like NBC Hannibal feels to watch. It's downright decadent in it's description and focuses just as much on food as it does on murder. The main character manages to be likeable despite what she describes to the reader and the author really made her feel like a food columnist

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