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junifornow 's review for:
This Vicious Hunger
by Francesca May
★☆☆☆☆ — I wanted to love it, but I’m just annoyed I finished it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.
I really really reaaaaally wanted to love this book. It has every element I love: gothic vibes, academic setting, lesbians, botanical horror, weird/otherworldly character, and so on. But man, I hated this book and I'm sad. I kept messaging my friend as I read it "I hate her", referring to the main character. Now, don't get me wrong. I love me an unlikeable main character, but Thora's flavour of unlikeable made me slightly homicidal.
If I were being objective, I might give this book a slightly higher rating, maybe a 2.5. But I’m going off pure emotional response here. The sheer frustration I felt while reading, and then when I finally finished, I didn’t even feel relief. Just irritation.
Thora is supposed to be smart. She tells us that she is, multiple times, and it’s set up to seem like she is. But she doesn’t exhibit much intelligence throughout. Her reactions frustrated me constantly, she was always blowing up or being hurt at the most minute thing said or implied. She’d mull over the same things again and again, changing her mind on them constantly. One moment she's mad at Olea for hiding something, the next she understands and her anger melts away, and then she’s mad about it again. I never connected with Thora. She has a personality, sure, but her emotions always felt so surface-level and changeable.
Her relationship with Olea was the least romantic thing I've ever witnessed. I hated reading their relationship. The first time they met, I was intrigued. I like an otherworldly/weird love interest. But they have no chemistry, and when they do get together, all they do is have sex and fight. The alleged great conversations they have all happen off-page, but what we do get in great detail is every single fight, and it’s constant. Always the same thing too:
"You MANIPULATED me!"
"No YOU manipulated me."
Then they’d forgive each other, have sex again, and repeat the cycle.
There’s nothing to root for. The only character I liked in this female-centric book was the man, the friend she made at university! I hope this is a series and not a standalone. The ending was terrible, so anticlimactic and empty. But if this is a series, I can at least see how it leads into another book. If it isn’t? Then it’s a very badly executed “open ending,” in my opinion.
Also, the worldbuilding was shaky at best. I liked the funerary rites stuff, it was cool, but the setting had no strong identity as a fantasy world separate from our own, especially since the university has an English faculty... in a world with no England?
Honestly, I just feel annoyed that I read this book. I wish I’d DNFed it, but I owe it to the publisher to read and review it after being given the opportunity to receive an ARC.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.
I really really reaaaaally wanted to love this book. It has every element I love: gothic vibes, academic setting, lesbians, botanical horror, weird/otherworldly character, and so on. But man, I hated this book and I'm sad. I kept messaging my friend as I read it "I hate her", referring to the main character. Now, don't get me wrong. I love me an unlikeable main character, but Thora's flavour of unlikeable made me slightly homicidal.
If I were being objective, I might give this book a slightly higher rating, maybe a 2.5. But I’m going off pure emotional response here. The sheer frustration I felt while reading, and then when I finally finished, I didn’t even feel relief. Just irritation.
Thora is supposed to be smart. She tells us that she is, multiple times, and it’s set up to seem like she is. But she doesn’t exhibit much intelligence throughout. Her reactions frustrated me constantly, she was always blowing up or being hurt at the most minute thing said or implied. She’d mull over the same things again and again, changing her mind on them constantly. One moment she's mad at Olea for hiding something, the next she understands and her anger melts away, and then she’s mad about it again. I never connected with Thora. She has a personality, sure, but her emotions always felt so surface-level and changeable.
Her relationship with Olea was the least romantic thing I've ever witnessed. I hated reading their relationship. The first time they met, I was intrigued. I like an otherworldly/weird love interest. But they have no chemistry, and when they do get together, all they do is have sex and fight. The alleged great conversations they have all happen off-page, but what we do get in great detail is every single fight, and it’s constant. Always the same thing too:
"You MANIPULATED me!"
"No YOU manipulated me."
Then they’d forgive each other, have sex again, and repeat the cycle.
There’s nothing to root for. The only character I liked in this female-centric book was the man, the friend she made at university! I hope this is a series and not a standalone. The ending was terrible, so anticlimactic and empty. But if this is a series, I can at least see how it leads into another book. If it isn’t? Then it’s a very badly executed “open ending,” in my opinion.
Also, the worldbuilding was shaky at best. I liked the funerary rites stuff, it was cool, but the setting had no strong identity as a fantasy world separate from our own, especially since the university has an English faculty... in a world with no England?
Honestly, I just feel annoyed that I read this book. I wish I’d DNFed it, but I owe it to the publisher to read and review it after being given the opportunity to receive an ARC.