a b c Livingstone, Josephine (2020-11-18). "When the Protagonist Is a Literal Man-Eater". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583 . Retrieved 2020-12-02. Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy's clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about. well, this wasn't very good. i cannot even give if "good for her" points since there was nothing enjoyable to it. the main character was not simply unlikeable - which would have been fine - but completely insufferable by way of being both self-important and vapid. this is a book about a female food critic (rad) who has a lot of sex (rad) and sometimes murders and eats men (admit it: also rad). Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both.

Few women come into maturity unscathed by the suffocating pink press of girlhood, and even psychopaths are touched by the long, frilly arm of feminine expectations. It’s not that women psychopaths don’t exist; it’s that we fake it better than men.” Dorothy is a food critic. She loves her job; mostly because she believes her palette is perfect for the job. What the reader doesn’t know yet, and slowly gets to know is that she likes her murder and gore too. similarly, the meandering thoughts of the characters, the randomly sprinkled "truisims" about life, love, etc. are meant to be "deep" - you can tell they are - but since they do not say anything of substance, both the book and the character come off as self-important and superficial. even if we were to ignore this, it is clear that the relationships that the novel chooses to highlight are central or at least relevant to the plot - the book is simplistic that way. however, in that regard it does a lot of telling and very little showing. unfortunately, the novel never truly explores or shows this, in spite of being structured to do so. it is, once again, crippled by the inadequacies of the prose.Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy’s clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about. Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both. In my jejune imagination, my dream lovers were uniform, each as beautiful, masculine, and replaceable as an Arrow shirt model. Really, what does a twelve-year-old know about men. To a girl, a man of thirty is impossibly old, if inconceivably desirable and infinitely replaceable. At twelve, my lust was little more than a vague mauve ache nestled in my cotton panties. I knew that lust was a dangerous thing, but I wanted these men to lust for me because, even though I didn’t know the precise shape and weight of lust, I knew that lust was power—and I wanted power even then. I would have still been satisfied with this book; only if there had been a point to everything that happens. I mean, even at the end, we never get to know the WHY - and that’s just wrong 😭

let's take the theme of murder and cannibalism, for example. the novel chooses to depict the murder that ends up sending dorothy to jail, as well as her four cases of cannibalism. she mentions several more murders she has committed as a side note. the novel discussed the why of cannibalism but for the murders, it gives little reason other than girlbossism (because women can be serial killers, too!). this cheapens the former - and it is a shame because i felt like the novel was truly on the precipice of saying something interesting and fascinating about it. One minute she’s enjoying the pleasures of her lover's tongue, next minute she’s roasting it. It was dark and depraved and I really enjoyed the insight into her mind and memoirs from her prison cell. This is the fake memoir of popular food critic Dorothy Daniels - she adores food, adores sex - oh and she happens to be a serial killer who eats parts of her victims! Though perhaps she knows I’d never approve the visit and she’s merely applying to toy with me. That’s not a possibility I’m willing to indulge, on the off chance that she appears some Sunday afternoon, dripping Vivienne Westwood and Guerlain Nahema. I don’t even open Emma’s letters.) Using a single point of view in a novel can heighten intensity, creating an immediate intimacy between character and reader. We learn to see the world through their eyes. This approach is particularly effective when the character is someone who lives outside the confines of society, as is the case with the charming sociopathic narrator of Chelsea G Summers’ debut novel A Certain Hunger.How do you approach to talk about a book that you have “enjoyed” reading yet you truly wanted to hate it? The grotesque and carnal nature of the narrator makes you not just uncomfortable but her unapologetic confessions keep you hooked till the very end of it. It’s like eating delicious food but its extremely unhealthy full of fats and salts but you crave for more and just can’t resist taking another bite. I don’t mind reading from the POV of a psychopath, but it’s a sin to force your reader to endure the POV of a *boring* psychopath. Dorothy describes herself as a “howling void” and the point is that she doesn’t have a soul, but it’s more appropriate because she doesn’t have a personality. She expresses the same three ideas ad nauseum until the very, very end when she says one thing that could have been a sustainable thesis for this book. But again, it wasn’t developed. dorothy states this towards the end of the novel in one of the most confessional, intimate moments (and i know its placing there is deliberate. please. it is probably one of the few writing choices that feels truly deliberate.). and this moment serves, explicitly, as the true thesis of the book. it is the reason why dorothy devours the men that she sees as integral to her identity. not just because women can be serial killer too, can commit despicable too - but because of something entirely human, taken to an extreme. What makes this so remarkable is the same choice skill that makes one cook better than another. Summers writes with humor and precision. It feels like fine dining with words, or at least verbal fusion cooking. Think of lingua al fredo, or maybe a salad of romans lettuce. It’s a cleverness that runs throughout. As I say, there’s no reason an over-the-top sexploitation style story should be so thoughtfully rendered, but thank goodness it is.