Reviews with content warning for Car accident - A Certain Hunger

was skeptical of the tiktok femcel girlies' recommendations but i really liked this. i don't know if it's my general disconnect from femininity/womanhood at the moment or an inability on my part to distinguish between satire and earnest observation but some passages definitely veered a bit too far into wanda in the dr. strange trailer Girlboss-ism, but honestly a small price to pay for an otherwise entertaining book about attachment and abandonment, love and isolation, yearning and passion, etc etc.

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savvylit's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

A Certain Hunger is wildly gory, beautifully written, disgusting, and delightful all at once. Like the gourmet meals that narrator Dorothy relishes, Chelsea G. Summers' prose is a delectable treat.

Summers is a modern master of metaphor and simile. There were so many occasions while reading in which I had to stop to marvel over an evocative turn of phrase. Here are just a few of my favorite examples:
"Then, he slid off his chair, smooth as a pat of butter oozing from a pile of hot flapjacks."
"As I stepped out into the gimlet dawn, sunlight was beginning to slip like white lies between the skyscrapers."
"Casimir wandering dazed as a startled possum."
"Flashes of the evening popped like firecrackers, while shards of conversation with Wasserman lacerated me."

Beyond Summers' delightful writing style, this book had many other strengths with which to cleanse the reader's palate between what were truly appalling descriptions of homicide and cannibalism. The scenery, setting, and characters of this book were so exaggerated as to become parodies. And in many ways, this book is satirical. A Certain Hunger is a satire of so much but especially of foodie culture, of obsession with serial killers, of societal pressures on womanhood, and of big agriculture. Ultimately I loved it all.

In creating Dorothy Daniels, Chelsea G. Summers has given the world an unforgettable, charming, and likable serial killer to join the ranks of Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman. This book is certainly not for the faint-hearted, though, so avoid it if body horror and gore are too much for you to digest.

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boglord's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective medium-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

3.25

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jolyne's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Summers’ writing style is insane and decadent; every page is chock-full with words that feel plump enough to eat lol. The story flips between campy dry humor and brutally disturbing descriptions, but it stays consistently clever. I did laugh out loud a good amount. A warning: there is strong sexual content and the descriptions of the protag’s mutilations leave little to the imagination. It’s funny that this is the first story that I’ve read where our lead is horrifying and twisted, but loveable in a way that makes me feel like I’ve lost a friend after finishing the book. Some things are iffy but make sense when you contextualize them with how icky Dorothy is.

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lycheejelly's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective 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

Content Warnings

jjreads331's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious 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

4.0

Apropos of the subject matter, I devoured this book. Dorothy has an incredibly distinct narrative voice, and I appreciated the faux memoir satire of it all. The writing about both food and murder and sex was visceral, sensual, and a little bit over the top. There were certainly parts that made me want to vomit a bit, but the descriptions of the food brought me right back in. A fun quick read for a darker sense of humor.

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arys_library's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

I’m glad I’m a vegan.

I absolutely loved this book. I knew it would be graphic but it was beyond what I was thinking it would be. Everything was so graphic and detailed which made me read a bit slower than usual but the writing style was still amazing. At times I feel like the author was being too descriptive, she described everything in great detail but it got to the point where things were so repetitive and I had to take a break. But besides that, I absolutely loved it

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kay_jax's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced

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

2.0

i had to make a coffee to muster up the strength to write down my thoughts on this one.

the authors’ writing isn’t awful but i would say some of it was overwritten and too descriptive (like too many adjectives and metaphors strung together). another structural issue was the drawn out storyline. i think the plot line was very confusing/ too out of order to where it dragged by the first third. this probably would’ve worked a lot better if it was a short story or novella.

i cant explain how unbelievably unlikable the narrator was in this. the first characteristic i couldn’t endure was her pretentious fetishism of italian men and culture. her lust for italians was bordering offensive and intolerable, i understand having an affinity for a type of person but i thought the description of the narrators’ desire for italian men was disturbing.
(also i feel like the narrator is an elitists but my brainpower is too low to get into that)
the second characteristic i felt was unnecessary was her sex drive. i felt like i was actually reading a story about a nymphomaniac instead of a psychopath. the two aren’t related so why did i need a whole novel basically recounting her decades long trysts?
i’m not a prude but damn, i really wasn’t trying to get a full tour of this fictional characters vagina.

honestly i feel like i wasted my time reading this. it wasn’t awful but also wasn’t good…unremarkable, i guess?

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