Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

40 reviews

itsheyfay's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Alcoholism, Body horror, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Outing, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Homophobia, Medical content, and War

rmnedder's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I love the Donner Party incident, and I love a good historical horror, so I had high hopes for this book. And unfortunately, I was let down. I will admit, the horror element of this book is intriguing, if a bit under-developed, and the inclusion of so many key players in the actual Donner Party was refreshing. However, there were so many things happening - so many secrets and so much interpersonal conflict - that the melodrama of it all actually eclipsed the horror. The plot crawls forward; any tension built up for the horror is immediately dissipated by the many strangely-placed interludes and frequent perspective changes. It's a little jarring and more than a little disjointed. 

It's a fine enough choice if you want a spooky Donner Party fiction novel (copious historical inaccuracies aside), but if you're looking for something true to history, or something genuinely thrilling, I'd skip this one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual assault, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Pregnancy, and Colonisation

Minor: Physical abuse and Pandemic/Epidemic

cvab's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

While a bit slow to get into (things started to amp up about 100 pages in), this was a very fun read. I'm not usually one for historical texts, but I can tell the author put a lot of care and passion into research for this novel. Piecing the story together through various characters' accounts made me feel as though I was a part of the wagon train myself, trying to figure out what was going on. The "big bad" is a very interesting premise, but I don't dare say more for fear of spoiling things. Great read!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Homophobia, Incest, Pedophilia, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Outing, and Alcohol

Minor: Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Any and all sexual themes here (

rape, incest

) are used for horror purposes and not glorified or romanticized.

ehmannky's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

A creepy re-imagining of the Donner's Party slow and disastrous trek to California--the genre of "we are living through a terrible event in human history and there are also The Horrors trying to kill us too" remains undefeated. The book bounces back between the trek west and the constant problems that the party had and brief glimpses into the backstories of the POV characters. The weight of their secrets and sins slowly weigh them down as they get closer to Truckee Lake, even as they are hunted by horrid creatures consumed by their own hunger. I liked the way the creatures (which resemble a mix between werewolf and wendigo mythologies) come through as representations of the weight of these sins (which are mostly sins due to the constraints of the white "civilization" they're leaving behind), the violence inherent in the expansion west, and then the terror of experiencing nature in all its violence. Katsu does play a little fast and loose with history here, which is something she openly admits at the end in order to make a better story. 

I also really liked the juxtaposition of the Donner-Reed party with the glimpses of Native people that we see. I felt like the emphasis on how the white settlers hoarded their food, refused to cooperate even as everyone was literally starving, and just the general violence they turn to as a first resort was just a contrast to the emphasis on sharing food even with strangers. Even the tribe that does fall prey to the hunger creatures in the woods is that way because, as the text says, they were infected by this culture of individualism that comes from Europe in the form of a prospector. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Cannibalism, and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia and Religious bigotry

Minor: Child abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, and Suicide

thegayestghost's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Bullying, Child death, Death, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Alcoholism, Cannibalism, and Alcohol

phantomgecko's review against another edition

challenging dark sad medium-paced

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

4.0

Gruesome twist on a true story. I'm not overly acquainted with the true story, so I don't feel like I was able to appreciate this book as much as perhaps I could have.

Adding a wendigo vibe to a tale of cannibalism isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it was still interesting. I don't feel like all the questions were answered sufficiently. Specifically I feel the part of the story with Edwin Bryant felt unfinished. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Cannibalism, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

narbine's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Colonisation

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, and Classism

Minor: Child abuse, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Suicide, Pregnancy, and War

glassflowrr's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

3.5

Solid story with some amazing moments of terror and gore. I really enjoyed the pacing. There are a few too many POV characters to keep track of and some aren't very well-developed as voices, but the good ones are very interesting to be with. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Gore, Homophobia, Racism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Cannibalism, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Medical content, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

squid4life's review against another edition

mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

To those who love Historical fiction with a bit of a supernatural twist, this would be a great book. But I didn’t find it appealing at all, I want to read more historical fiction however this was not the book for me.
Also had more elements of a Romance book than it did a Horror which is what I thought it was.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood

Moderate: Cannibalism and Sexual harassment

Minor: Animal death

singlier's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious tense 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

The Hunger 1.5/5 🐂s by Alma Katsu 

Oh I wanted to enjoy this book and I was so excited to give it a read. The Hunger is a horror retelling of the ill-fated Donner Party expedition during the mid 1800s, weaving real life histories and people with a supernatural twist of horror and fear.

But it just... Didn't hit. There were a lot of narrator characters (around 5: Edwin Bryant, Charles Stanton, James Reed, Tamsen Donner, and Elitha Graves) and I never really got close to any of them or felt a strong connection to them. The way the book is ordered, often something important would happen to a character, but it wouldn't be until the next chapter that it's revealed *why*. 

Also, there are just...a ton of characters and a few chapters in I just gave up trying to keep who's who straight: who was cousins with who, who was the daughter-in-law of who, who was who's son or the servants of who, so on. Rarely so I ask for this, but I really wished to have a family tree in the beginning to keep things straight.

The book struggles most notably with its treatment of Native American practices, quickly falling into the ideas of "Indigenous mysticism" as soon as things turn awry. Maybe it's playing off the beliefs of the settlers, but for once I'd like a horror where there wasn't "an old Native American folktale detailing this exact horror situation" going on, you know? Also, negative a million points for using the s-term to describe the collection of symptoms (cannibalism, violence, etc) of the settlers. Turning them into "creatures less than human" felt like it took away from the horror of the situation of the Donner Party: the scariest thing of all is realizing that even "good" people are not exempt from evil, and will commit atrocious acts to their fellow people in acts of survival or desperation.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Blood, Cannibalism, and Classism

Minor: Incest, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Vomit