lucywestenra 's review for:

Hungerstone by Kat Dunn

4.0

dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I liked it better than Carmilla!!! I hated Carmilla(the classic novella, not the character) The ending of this one was satisfying and the story was pretty intriguing throughout. The vampirism is honestly more like zombie/cannibalism at points but that’s fine. I’ve seen that before and it can work. It works here. We spend the novel exploring the POV of Lenore, entirely. There’s a decent amount of timeline hopping or flashbacks to other times in Lenore’s life. Lenore takes us with her into her ruminations and self doubt, a lot. For myself, that slowed down the book a bit but it serves its purpose and I think it’s necessary to a fully developed character study of Lenore. If you want to read a book like Carmilla without the blatant & harsh homophobia, this one is for you. Spoiler:

no Carmillas were harmed in the making of this book.🤣

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail