Reviews with content warning for Rape - Le divoratrici

I really enjoyed this book, i love how it explored taking up space as a feminist act and examined women's relationship to food but I wish there was more development given to the other members of the supper club besides the main two characters. All the men are presented as flat, one dimensional and in essence not good people and the relationship of the main character and her partner is boring and doesn't give you enough to go off with whether you want to root for them or not.

Content Warnings

emmabg's review against another edition

Go to review page

hopeful inspiring medium-paced

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

3.5

I didn’t love how the timeline of the narrative jumped around, however, watching these women feel empowered to take up space made up for it.

Content Warnings

definebookish's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

For me, Supper Club hit somewhere between Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed and Daisy Buchanan’s Insatiable – but with less sex than either, and more friendship. I liked both of those, and I liked this even more.

Roberta is in her late twenties, working in a job she’s indifferent to, starting to suspect she’ll never have a proper relationship. What she does have is hunger, a love of cooking, and best friend Stevie, who she’s (mutually) obsessed with. Together they launch an underground supper club where women can take up space and indulge their appetites.

This is a dual-timeline type situation, moving between the sometimes hedonistic present and Roberta’s earlier, more subdued life at university. If anything, I expected more hedonism; the supper clubs see Roberta, Stevie and guests gorging on multiple courses, taking pills, and eventually breaking into venues, but that’s a relatively small amount of the narrative. There’s a lot more time spent on Roberta’s relationships – with Stevie, with her well-intentioned but irritatingly rule-following boyfriend, and with her family – and working through the past experiences that trained her to make herself small.

On a couple of occasions, the transition between timelines did lose me a little – cue me rereading five pages to clarify whether the protagonist was having a flashback or just casually cheating on her boyfriend with an ex. For the most part, though, this one hits the spot. It’s witty and poignant and gloriously messy, and the food descriptions are next-level. Special mention to the passages on spaghetti alla puttanesca.

Content Warnings

More...