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3.17 AVERAGE
3.17 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
Unfortunately I ended up putting this one down and could not convince myself to continue with it đ„ reading this felt like trying to get through thick sludge. At times the true gothic vibes were present but it was pretty inconsistent which kinda ruined it for me and I was so so so looking forward to this book.
I am intrigued to see what Francesca May releases in the future just based on vibes of This Vicious Hunger but I don't see myself picking this up anytime soon. I may give it another go once released.
Thankyou to Francesca May, Little Brown Book Group and NetGalley for an ARC of This Vicious Hunger.
I am intrigued to see what Francesca May releases in the future just based on vibes of This Vicious Hunger but I don't see myself picking this up anytime soon. I may give it another go once released.
Thankyou to Francesca May, Little Brown Book Group and NetGalley for an ARC of This Vicious Hunger.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK/ Orbit for a free e-ARC of 'This Vicious Hunger' by Francesca May.
The book follows Thora, the daughter of an undertaker, trying to adjust to her new life after both her father and her newly betrothed husband die shortly after one another - finding herself completely alone. 'This Vicious Hunger' appears to be set at some point in the fictional past, where women are only expected to be wives and mothers. Luckily, Thora is offered an opportunity to work under an old friend of her father - a botanist at a university. Many mysteries begin to unfold after she stumbles upon a strange garden and the ethereal woman who appears to live there.
'This Vicious Hunger' was such an enjoyable gothic queer read - which seem to be my favourite at the moment! It is such an interesting commentary on the complexities of freedom as a woman, especially queer women, in the time the book is set. It seems that no matter how hard Thora tries, she remains caged in one way or another. There were so many twists and turns and I was completely hooked.
I only have a minimal number of criticisms - I spent 4 hours straight into the night finishing the latter half of this book as I was so gripped! The first is that I would have liked a little more worldbuilding around where the characters in the world are based (this may be my fantasy bias showing), but there were many times I was wondering where this was set and more about the context of this, then realising it was a fictional place, but other than the context of the time, there wasn't much else to go off of. There were also some phrases and words that felt a little too overused throughout the book for my liking. Lastly, without spoilers, poor Leo really got the brunt of a lot of things throughout the story!
The book follows Thora, the daughter of an undertaker, trying to adjust to her new life after both her father and her newly betrothed husband die shortly after one another - finding herself completely alone. 'This Vicious Hunger' appears to be set at some point in the fictional past, where women are only expected to be wives and mothers. Luckily, Thora is offered an opportunity to work under an old friend of her father - a botanist at a university. Many mysteries begin to unfold after she stumbles upon a strange garden and the ethereal woman who appears to live there.
'This Vicious Hunger' was such an enjoyable gothic queer read - which seem to be my favourite at the moment! It is such an interesting commentary on the complexities of freedom as a woman, especially queer women, in the time the book is set. It seems that no matter how hard Thora tries, she remains caged in one way or another. There were so many twists and turns and I was completely hooked.
I only have a minimal number of criticisms - I spent 4 hours straight into the night finishing the latter half of this book as I was so gripped! The first is that I would have liked a little more worldbuilding around where the characters in the world are based (this may be my fantasy bias showing), but there were many times I was wondering where this was set and more about the context of this, then realising it was a fictional place, but other than the context of the time, there wasn't much else to go off of. There were also some phrases and words that felt a little too overused throughout the book for my liking. Lastly, without spoilers, poor Leo really got the brunt of a lot of things throughout the story!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexual content, Violence, Grief
Moderate: Death, Gore, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Murder
dark
slow-paced
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I found the first half of this book quite interesting while the latter half made me feel like I was experiencing a high school production of Waiting for Gadot. Everything was just so repetitive and not in absurdist way, it was painful. Part of the issue for me is that I still donât really get Oleaâs deal. Is she naive? Is she very observant and conniving? A character can hold multitudes, but she wasnât fleshed out enough for me and it instead felt like a lack of development on the part of the author. If youâre intrigued by themes like the insatiable hunger of oppressed women I would recommend Kat Dunnâs Hungerstone. If you want some toxic sapphics in a dark academia setting give S.T. Gibsonâs An Education in Malice a try.
CW: murder, suicidal ideation, death of a parent, self harm explicit on page, disordered eating explicit on page, gore, blood
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.
CW: murder, suicidal ideation, death of a parent, self harm explicit on page, disordered eating explicit on page, gore, blood
Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Gore, Self harm, Blood, Murder
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Death of parent
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2.5 / 5 stars
This book was unfortunately disappointing and ultimately quite frustrating, because it had promise, but ended up falling far short. The main positive about this book was the writing style, which I did enjoy reading. But thatâs really the only positive I can think of, though it did have a large enough impact on my reading experience that I am rounding my 2.5 star score up (for goodreads and netgalley). While I wouldnât say that the book truly succeeds in creating a gothic atmosphere, it does still manage to impart the eerie and lonely nature of Thoraâs existence quite well.
Now to the not so good things. Really my biggest issue is the ending, which does not feel like an ending. I completely understand that whether or not you like open endings is up to personal preference, but I honestly canât see anyone, even someone who loves open endings, being content with this. Because this âendingâ feels like itâs supposed to go right before the actual ending. Like the author ran out of time and decided «eh, good enough» and just handed in the manuscript sans-ending.
The characters were one of the more frustrating parts of the book, because they are actually interesting and layered, but then their story doesnât really go anywhere. Look at the protagonist, Thora, for instance; she grew up somewhat isolated from the normal world, as a result of being an undertakerâs daughter and having lost her mother early in her life. Her father married her off to a seedy man because he was dying (something that he only told Thora about shortly before his death), since a woman couldnât really survive alone in their society and the guy was the only man who would take Thora, unappealing as she is. A few weeks after their wedding, her abusive husband dies and her in laws just want to get rid of her, so they shuffle her off on some professor of botany at the local university who offered to take her under their wing - even though women are not usually allowed to get a university education. Thora quickly realises that there is something strange about her new mentorâs work, but sheâs unwilling to say anything about it because this position is her last resort, and without it she would have nowhere left to go. Like, that is absolutely a great constellation of circumstances to make a fascinating character, but again the deeply unsatisfying ending just makes it all seem pointless.
The romance between Thora and Olea is also just very disappointing. The character of Olea also starts with an intriguing basis to her character, but more and more she just starts becoming annoying and repetitive. There is some chemistry between Olea and Thora in the first half of the book, only for it to completely disappear by the halfway mark, even though their romance is the axis which this whole story orbits around.
In general there are just a lot of weird author choices throughout the book. Like, why are all of the names Italian (Petaccia, Niccolo, Leonardo, Elianto), but then the protagonistâs name is Thora Grieve???? Why is this set in a fictional, albeit vaguely Italian-inspired, world, yet the characters reference figures from Greek mythology and smallpox? Who thought «speak in the plain fucking common tongue» sounded good? Why is this tagged as adult fiction but reads as YA all the way through, except for the sex scenes maybe. So yeah. Quite disappointed.
---
Thank you to Orbit/Little, Brown UK for the ARC
This book was unfortunately disappointing and ultimately quite frustrating, because it had promise, but ended up falling far short. The main positive about this book was the writing style, which I did enjoy reading. But thatâs really the only positive I can think of, though it did have a large enough impact on my reading experience that I am rounding my 2.5 star score up (for goodreads and netgalley). While I wouldnât say that the book truly succeeds in creating a gothic atmosphere, it does still manage to impart the eerie and lonely nature of Thoraâs existence quite well.
Now to the not so good things. Really my biggest issue is the ending, which does not feel like an ending. I completely understand that whether or not you like open endings is up to personal preference, but I honestly canât see anyone, even someone who loves open endings, being content with this. Because this âendingâ feels like itâs supposed to go right before the actual ending. Like the author ran out of time and decided «eh, good enough» and just handed in the manuscript sans-ending.
The characters were one of the more frustrating parts of the book, because they are actually interesting and layered, but then their story doesnât really go anywhere. Look at the protagonist, Thora, for instance; she grew up somewhat isolated from the normal world, as a result of being an undertakerâs daughter and having lost her mother early in her life. Her father married her off to a seedy man because he was dying (something that he only told Thora about shortly before his death), since a woman couldnât really survive alone in their society and the guy was the only man who would take Thora, unappealing as she is. A few weeks after their wedding, her abusive husband dies and her in laws just want to get rid of her, so they shuffle her off on some professor of botany at the local university who offered to take her under their wing - even though women are not usually allowed to get a university education. Thora quickly realises that there is something strange about her new mentorâs work, but sheâs unwilling to say anything about it because this position is her last resort, and without it she would have nowhere left to go. Like, that is absolutely a great constellation of circumstances to make a fascinating character, but again the deeply unsatisfying ending just makes it all seem pointless.
The romance between Thora and Olea is also just very disappointing. The character of Olea also starts with an intriguing basis to her character, but more and more she just starts becoming annoying and repetitive. There is some chemistry between Olea and Thora in the first half of the book, only for it to completely disappear by the halfway mark, even though their romance is the axis which this whole story orbits around.
In general there are just a lot of weird author choices throughout the book. Like, why are all of the names Italian (Petaccia, Niccolo, Leonardo, Elianto), but then the protagonistâs name is Thora Grieve???? Why is this set in a fictional, albeit vaguely Italian-inspired, world, yet the characters reference figures from Greek mythology and smallpox? Who thought «speak in the plain fucking common tongue» sounded good? Why is this tagged as adult fiction but reads as YA all the way through, except for the sex scenes maybe. So yeah. Quite disappointed.
---
Thank you to Orbit/Little, Brown UK for the ARC
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Got an arc from orbitâs mailing list.
This was an interesting book. The writing is lovely and I devoured (no pun intended) half of it in two days as I was desperate to know what was going on. Itâs deliberately paced in a way that to me didnât feel boring, just doling out information at a pace that kept me so intrigued I didnât wanna put it down.
I found the last 100 pages or so to be a touch repetitive, in terms of the charactersâ arguments though. It feels like itâs setting up for a sequel that I will gladly read but if thatâs the case I think it shouldâve ended sooner than it did. I canât say ânothing happenedâ because thatâs not it at all, lots of important things do happen, but where it concludes feels like strange placement to me, where ending it sooner I feel couldâve told a more complete story, and those repetitive last 100 pages couldâve better served as an opening to a second book.
Like I said, I did like it and I loved trying to figure out what was going on and what would happen next, and the ending doesnât completely ruin that or take away from it, I just feel it stumbled a smidge at the end when it didnât have to! That said, I will read a sequel if there is one because I want to see this wrap up solidly!
This was an interesting book. The writing is lovely and I devoured (no pun intended) half of it in two days as I was desperate to know what was going on. Itâs deliberately paced in a way that to me didnât feel boring, just doling out information at a pace that kept me so intrigued I didnât wanna put it down.
I found the last 100 pages or so to be a touch repetitive, in terms of the charactersâ arguments though. It feels like itâs setting up for a sequel that I will gladly read but if thatâs the case I think it shouldâve ended sooner than it did. I canât say ânothing happenedâ because thatâs not it at all, lots of important things do happen, but where it concludes feels like strange placement to me, where ending it sooner I feel couldâve told a more complete story, and those repetitive last 100 pages couldâve better served as an opening to a second book.
Like I said, I did like it and I loved trying to figure out what was going on and what would happen next, and the ending doesnât completely ruin that or take away from it, I just feel it stumbled a smidge at the end when it didnât have to! That said, I will read a sequel if there is one because I want to see this wrap up solidly!
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes