Reviews tagging 'Antisemitism'

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

25 reviews

mmefish's review against another edition

Not only it's blatantly racist and anti-Semitic (you can't just say "my character is a psychopath" and pretend that it makes anything you write OK), it's also laughably edgy, overwritten and unnecessary vulgar in relations to sex.

Includes gems like:

"In an arc as perfect as a fifteen-year-old girl's breast [...]"

And

"I imagined the relief after my hymen broke [...]"

For the love of god, learn your own body's anatomy.

Chelsea Summers writes women as Men-Writing-Women write women. In what world this piece of garbage is feminist?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual content, Antisemitism, and Rape

abicaro17's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

The last 25% of the book was very gripping and intriguing. Unfortunately most of the book had me checking my progress and seeing if it was over yet. Im usually a sucker for a gruesome murder which this book technically delivers but, the descriptions of literally anything and everything take up most of the book. Its almost repetitive and it took a lot of self control not to skim the book. Plus the amount of times Dorothy was just like "oh yeah this happened anyways back to this food" was annoying as fuck. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Murder, Sexism, Antisemitism, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Cancer, Cannibalism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Violence, Alcohol, Car accident, Death, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Stalking, Blood, Death of parent, and Classism

ciaranolio's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny fast-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

A comic horror novel written as a cannibal food critic's memoir, reminiscent in ways of American Psycho, darkly funny in places and deeply off-putting in others. Very vivid writing style and truly excellent food descriptions were a delight to me, but my reading experience was somewhat marred by the book's reputation as a feminist girlboss-type story, especially when considering the fact that the protagonist (who, don't get me wrong, is as entertaining as they come, but most certainly not a girlboss in my mind) actively commits a hate crime.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Antisemitism, Blood, Car accident, Cannibalism, and Violence

Moderate: Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Stalking, Sexual content, Rape, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Death of parent, Chronic illness, Classism, Body shaming, Alcohol, and Cancer

paumdza's review against another edition

boring annoying and uninteresting  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism and Rape

calamitymeat's review against another edition

slow-paced

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

1.5

I understand WHY the book was written like this but it was fucking exhausting and impossible to get through and I was sick of this book by the second week of reading it because WHY is it taking me two entire weeks to read a 250 page book

Spoiler

also?? killing her jewish ex in a kosher way?? fucking weird and i don't even really care if "the point is that she's a psychopath" or whatever

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Antisemitism, Sexual content, and Gore

Minor: Sexual assault

emmagrace012's review against another edition

dark funny reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

Honestly loved it. So enjoyable to read, if a bit grandiloquent. Really enjoyed the immersive character experience and the overall plot lines. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Cannibalism, Violence, and Animal death

Moderate: Rape, Sexual content, Gore, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, Car accident, and Blood

Minor: Cancer, Death of parent, Antisemitism, and Terminal illness

abundance_of_fiction's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

3.5

Almost a 4 stars but more like 3.5. This book was short but the pacing still felt slow due to the monologue and narration. As a serial killer/thriller fan it was entertaining to see the author weave in many of these infamous women into her story and how they related to Dorothy. Reading about this psychopathic cannibal was both grotesque but intriguing as far as a narrative goes. Dark but engaging. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Blood, Body horror, Murder, Gore, Violence, Mental illness, and Cannibalism

Minor: Toxic relationship, Ableism, Toxic friendship, Antisemitism, Cancer, and Fire/Fire injury

slintangel's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

1.0

i know youre all illiterate cause how are you screaming girlboss at a woman committing a hate crime

shit book about a pretentious prick who tries to use feminism and patriarchal oppression as the reason why she killed men who did not even wrong her in any way. pass.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cannibalism, Murder, Gore, Antisemitism, and Hate crime

Moderate: Racism

angievansprang's review against another edition

Ultimately, the discussion of cannibalism and it’s supposed “origin” in West African cultures is ignorant and uneducated for a book that so desperately wishes to be pompous, pretentious, and over-intellectualized. I specifically stopped reading at a section where the author/main character discuss william seabrook and his book the magic island which from a quick Google, I am pretty sure paints West African indigenous peoples as not only cannibals but also zombies which is baseline racist to say the absolute least. From reading other reviews, I learned that later in the book, our main character

Spoiler

kills an ex lover named Marco who is Jewish in “kosher style” because he no longer wants to fuck her. I also learned that the book contains an on-page anti-Semitic slur later on as well as a description of the main character’s “intrigue” around her own sexual assault.

Additionally, I found it absurd to hear this author’s discussion of the “unjust” conditions of incarceration as the main character is an extremely privileged white woman *GUILTY OF MULTIPLE CASES OF MURDER AND CANNIBALISM* after recently having read Angela Davis’ autobiography which details the real oppression she faced in the American incarcerate system as a Black woman on no grounds whatsoever. This book certainly strikes me as exclusionary white feminism at it’s core and I would not recommend it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Racism, Racial slurs, Antisemitism, Gore, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Sexual assault

blackcatkai's review against another edition

slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

CW: blood, violence, antisemitism, murder, ableism, fatphobia, food/body shaming, classism, racism (slurs and otherwise), sexual content, rape and other types of sexual assault/harassments, gore, animal cruelty and death, sexism, gaslighting, infidelity, alcohol and drug use, passages that may read a bit homophobic and/or transphobic

no. i get that it's supposed to be a satire overall and youre not meant to like the main character, but my biggest issue was how boring the entire novel is. and technically, it's only a satire in regards to the universe of food in real life, not the sexism or murder or sex or society as a whole or whatever. so maybe if it had JUST been about that, it would've been more successful for me. then the character of Dorothy would've read better with her vapid, self important, condescending, holier than thou bullshit. but not here, not when you throw in everything else.

pacing? all over the place, mainly slow. cannibalism and violence? well, its THERE, technically? but it takes forever to get to the gruesome bits and then theyre lackluster at best. this doesnt feel feminist or inclusive or a biting commentary on anything other than narcissists suck. there's also a ton of nuanced information presented in a non-nuanced way that feels like im reading an incomplete wikipedia page with no sources and missing key context. we get it, the author learned about a lot of things and wanted us to know about them, even if some info was left out, leading to what feels like misinformation, even in a fictional story.

this is more a book about gratuitous sex, fancy food, and trips to europe because its the best (except new york city, of course) than it is about cis-female empowerment, cannibalism, or violence. its repetitive use of simile, speaking down to the reader, and infodumps, left me disengaged, bored, and desperate for the end.

basically, this book was not for me, and im so glad its finally over. thank you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Classism, Rape, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Ableism, Racial slurs, Racism, Acephobia/Arophobia, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Gore, Murder, and Body horror

Moderate: Sexual assault, Outing, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Mental illness, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Cancer, Homophobia, Antisemitism, Drug use, Cannibalism, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Transphobia