Reviews

Feast by Emily O'Grady

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serendipitysbooks'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? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Feast unfolds over a single weekend in a remote Scottish manor house. Alison, a retired actress, and her partner Patrick, an aging musician, live there and have recently been joined by his teenage daughter Neve. He has decided to hold a party for her 18th birthday, and her mother Shannon flies in from Australia for the occasion. The book is narrated by the three women in turn, and we learn about their past as well as getting to observe them in the present. All are hiding secrets which eventually get revealed. This book was full of layers, cleverly constructed (loved that we never heard directly from Patrick and only got to see him through the eyes others ), and well-written. It's also populated by unlikable characters who have and continue to behave badly in ways both large and small. With no one to root for the only thing that kept me going was waiting to see what awfulness would be revealed next. And because the characters escaped the worst of the consequences they should have had coming to them that was not as satisfying as I wished. While I appreciated the author's skill, this was a book that didn't mesh with my personal taste. It opens with a rather disturbing scene where a rabbit is killed and includes plenty of other triggers as well. Listing them veers into spoiler territory but check out Storygraph if you need to know more.

Content Warnings

narpetcards's review

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dark reflective 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

4.0

alscl_'s review

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dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.0

booksellersdiary's review

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

Unnecessarily bleak.

azlanm's review against another edition

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slow-paced

2.25

curatoriallyyours's review

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dark fast-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

3.0

While the writing was, at times, quite good, the character development was a bit choppy - the character Alison seemed like two totally different people at different times in the book. Multiple characters were

secretly horrible and pretty unlikeable

and there was a bit of gore, which wasn’t super icky but I could have done without it. The story also felt a little disjointed to me. I was compelled enough to keep reading the book to find out what lay beneath the facade of the characters (and to finish it in one day) but ultimately this book is pretty forgettable.

Content Warnings