A review by ssmylie
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I liked the book because I'm a sucker for vampires and sapphic romances. I just felt like there was a lot missing for me and I felt like this was done before :/

I know the book is about New York in the 1920s, but it often didn't feel like that to me. Unfortunately, I like when the setting speaks to the story. What would this story have been like if it was based in the California in the 1920s? Or Georgia? Or South Carolina? The setting felt so ambiguous that it could have happened anywhere. 

One of the main characters is a Black woman pianist, but we have no idea what music she is playing and what music means to her beyond using it for her anxiety or to gain praise from her parents. One character feels sad, hopeless, or angry because of the trauma that happened to her but it doesn't feel nuanced to me. I didn't feel devastation as she talked about leaving her past life to be a vampire, it just felt like "this is the past." What if the author would have given us more flashbacks to that characters life as a dancer and how balancing on her feet made her feel? I think then I would have felt more invested in her story. 

The medical racism in the story, felt like more could have been added to really highlight how it has harmed Black people at the time. I really wish we had a flashback of the oldest vampire in the book's when she was changed due to scientific experiments.