The story of Dorothy, a psychopath who indulges in her lack of empathy. Coming from a moderately wealthy family and left an inheritance, Dorothy becomes an exceptionally well-traveled, well-read food critic. She knows the best restaurants and enjoys cooking, describing the both the exotic and traditional dishes she eats, especially in Italy, her adopted second home.
She also relishes finding new lovers, especially if her research on the person turns up something Dorothy can use as leverage in the future. That she can destroy them is always in the back of her mind. As she matures, Dorothy's pleasure in the forbidden includes murder and cannibalism.

It would be too easy to say that Dorothy is a monster and her story is one of vulgar brutality, but that would ignore the times when she discusses the beauty of Italy and the care that goes into the cuisine, or the magazine trade of the 90s, the art of Ivan Albright, how Kosher meat is processed and how the USDA works. All these asides of a page or two combine to show how intelligent and curious Dorothy is about the world. The brutality is mixed with her version of sensuousness, which can be gross, but Summers is a superb writer who has created a fascinating character. ( )

Beautifully written! ( )

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


4/5 Stars – Dark, twisted humour with a murderous narrator is my favourite flavour🍽️

Reading this book reminded me of when I first saw The Young Poisoner’s Handbook on TV when I was a teenager and thought it was absolutely fucking brilliant. It is a black comedy film from 1995 based on the true story of Graham Young – who got sent to Broadmoor at 14 years old for poisoning his family, friends and family. I loved it.

I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but black comedies about murderous psychopaths really tickle me (see also
Heathers
which I think I first saw around the same time, and
Sight Seers
from 2012).

In book form, I’ve loved (and may never shut up about)

Bunny

with its funny, dark magical realism, and last year I also fell for the twisted mind of Ottessa Moshfegh and her bitter twisted outsiders (of her novels I’ve read Eileen and
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
, I have Lapvona in my TBR but I’m bracing myself for that one!). I also read a few years back
My Sister, the Serial Killer
and loved that one too (highly recommended!). At university I loved reading Angela Carter, and I’d put
Money
and
Other People
by Martin Amis in this category too. I was also remembering reading
The Wasp Factory
by Ian Banks the other day and trying to describe what it was about to my partner! Good God, that book (if you know, you know).

Disturbing, fucked up worlds and selfish amoral characters hold a sick fascination for me.

So when
A Certain Hunger
crossed my path (and by my path I mean, Amazon Kindle deals!) I snapped it right up! I was a little trepidatious because I’d been sorely burned by
How To Kill Your Family
last year which I found to be an overhyped waste of time (a DNF at 15%!). But I had no need to fear – A Certain Hunger is what How To Kill Your Family didn’t have the imagination to be!

Dorothy Daniels
I adored Dorothy as a character, although she is definitely not someone I’d ever want to know! A mid-fifties, successful food critic and now convicted murderer; she is a proud, ruthless psychopath who has always known what she wanted and how to get it. She loves gourmet food and adventurous sex with many men, and somewhere along the way, she developed a taste for the flesh of her lovers.

Dorothy is an unreliable narrator, we only have her word for any of this, including her superiority which she really wants the reader to understand (she is also one of those people who spent a year abroad in Italy, learned Italian and then won’t ever shut up about it). I appreciated that she was not really as smart as she thinks she is, she makes many mistakes in her murders and especially the one she was caught for. The chapter where she kills the guy on a boat really had me laughing!

The Words!

The meat was quite tasty, chewier than beef, certainly, but with an earthy thrum, a kind of truffled bass note, and the piquancy that comes only from the deepest flavor of nostalgia.

The story is told in Dorothy’s words, ostensibly as her prison memoir, and what words they are! Dorothy’s prose are stuffed with the extravagant, visceral – dare I say pompous – words of a sexually charged professional food critic. It made me want to use the word “fecund” more in my everyday life. I have read some reviews that appear to have taken the writing style seriously, but to me, this is clearly a part of the satire. I can’t picture Chelsea G. Summer writing a passage like the one below and not cackling wildly to herself.

A miasma of beef tallow, dirty corn oil, and unwashed man surrounded us. To this day, I can’t look at a Burger King cheeseburger wrapper without feeling my clit twitch. Such is the power of that particular madeleine. I wish I knew that guy’s name. I’d like to look him up.

This must have been such a fun book to write!

But I can’t give it 5 Stars!
As much as this tickled me I can’t give A Certain Hunger a five-star rating. I found it a lot of fun, but it was a surface-level experience. I would put it more in a “beach read” category, it is not Literature it is just entertainment. There is nothing wrong with that, just don’t go into this expecting anything profound (unless it awakens your own inner desire to eat human flesh). It doesn’t stand up against the books I mentioned in my introduction, but sometimes it’s nice to read some “lighter” fucked up shit that won’t give me nightmares when I read it before bed.

Ultimately though, I wished there was a bit more meat to it. I either needed more depth to Dorothy’s motivations (why exactly did she pick her victims, and why murder and eat them in the way she did?) or I needed a cool twist. As it is, the plot is rather predictable and there is very little tension.

Really this might be more of a 3-star read but it gets the extra star because I’m a sicko who just loves this type of book!

I am keen to see what Chelsea G. Summers writes next!

This review was also posted to my Book Blog!



View all my reviews ( )

This one was an *interesting* read. Clever, funny, but oh so dark. It managed to be gruesome without going toooo far. The cheeky humor helped bring some relief to the cold hard mmmmyuuurdur. If you’re up for a dark tale of lady serial killer, this is for you. ( )

Content Warning:
on page s* assualt
graphic violence cannibalism

I'm pretty sure this is a new favorite for me. You can feel the author's knowledge of 18th century British literature. Extensive vocabulary, visceral wordplay, outstanding satire.

It took me a while to read, but I feel like I've never enjoyed a book I've had to keep an oxford dictionary next to--and I loved this fact the whole way.

SPOILERS AHEAD:
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*I've not read many difficult books, and this was a good segue from easier books to a literature

loved:
Emma. Team Emma all the way.
Emma in college, Emma as Tender DeBris, Emma painting, Dorothy cooking for Emma, both getting blasted, Dorothy literally going into detail about the finer points of being a serial killer surviving an attack because she had a silent alarm set while smoking on a fire escape not ratting on her to the cops or the court. That's a best friend, right there. Emma all the way, full stop.

the 4th wall breaks that stared into my soul

prison group therapy

written as a memoir--the POV alone makes it so intriguing.


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