Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - A Certain Hunger

Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

27 reviews

raquelcanread's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny reflective tense medium-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

3.75

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ennui_09's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-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

Where should I start? I am not a native English speaker, but I consider myself fluent or properly fluent in understanding texts and having conversations with people. This being said…I struggled to read some bits in the book because of the word choice. It was pretentious. I had to stop, put the book down and google the definition of the said word which took me out of the story and took away from the whole experience. I learned some new words from this, I will give it that. I don’t know if it’s because the author is or used to be a teacher or because she did it on purpose to make Dorothy seem extra pretentious. Either way, it made me curious to see what other people had to say and it made me feel better to see other people’s reviews (native English speakers) state the same feeling about the language used.
There was another thing that got annoying after a while and that is the enumerating (?) or repetition of something but said in different ways, put in different words to emphasize what the author wants to say. I understand doing this with a few comparisons to get your point across but it happened so so so often in the first couple of pages. It stopped towards the middle.
I think this book is perfect for someone who loves food, who understands and knows what the dishes Dorothy is speaking about are. Who is familiar with cooking techniques and who has knowledge about food. Dorothy names the foods by their names, most of the time it’s in Italian and then she goes on to explain what the food is, sometimes she doesn’t but often times I found myself a little lost? I am not blaming the book for this, I think the descriptions were well done but I am not one to speak since I’ve never had those foods in my life and I don’t know how accurate it was. To me, it was nicely described although it got a lot here and there. I got a little annoyed at her for complaining so much about the food in prison, which…is my fault. Of course, a food critic and someone who’s a gourmand would complain about it so much. I think I would too if I was in her place.
I was very hooked from the start then towards the middle it kind of dragged out a little, when we got to the story about Marco I was over the description about the cattle and the whole process. I was tempted to skip those few pages but I sucked it up. I just didn’t really care about the dude’s business, not gonna lie and it dragged out. There’s also an explicit description of a cow getting killed for meat in case you’re sensitive to stuff like that. I found the part about Alex interesting, same goes with Emma. I wish we saw more of Dorothy’s friendship with Emma. It was pretty interesting.
For some murders, I found it a bit weird how she got away with it. Are the cops lacking so much to not look more into it or am I missing something? I was a little skeptical about it.
I know this review sounds like I hated this book which makes no sense since I gave it a 3-star rating BUT I liked the take on female killers, and how society sees females fit for motherhood but not able of violence. I found some quotes I really liked that got me thinking about stuff. Oh, what I liked is that at times Dorothy is speaking to the reader and calls us out. I think this happens a lot these days, I mean people got so interested in true crime and read books on it or listen to podcasts. And I felt like she was calling out people like that. I liked that part. Not gonna lie, at some parts, I was in a way rooting for her? I am not justifying what she did but I guess reading about an unhinged woman can be a little empowering.
I liked reading about her family too although dysfunctional and not the healthiest. This is all I can think about for now but if you’re someone who loves food, loves something graphic, and read about unhinged women then I think this is for you.
Maybe I would have given it more if it wasn’t for the word choice which led to me taking forever to finish this book then just made me wanna be over although it got better towards the end.

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