A Certain Hunger Paperback – October 18, 2021

I review books on Instagram at @britsbookchat“A Certain Hunger is a swaggering, audacious debut, and a celebration of all the wet, hot pleasures of human contact. In a culture that fetishizes male power, the heroine of A Certain Hunger is a rapacious, bloodthirsty monster—a perversion of every male fear ... the book is sometimes overwhelming.”This book had my jaw dropping many times. I did eat this book up quite fast (pun intended 😉) It’s an audacious and bold story that delves into the darker side of human desire. The main character is unapologetically violent and hungry for power in ways that challenge male-dominated narratives. This is psychological and incredibly complex.The language in this book is intricate and sharp, pushing you to engage deeply with the prose. Which I LOVE.While it’s filled with grotesque moments, the book offers more than shock value. There’s real character depth and nuance, which I doubt you’ll ever forget.The deeper you go, the more you get wrapped up in the twisted mind of the protagonist, and it’s a journey I found both incredibly disturbing and fascinating.•••••Some of my favorite quotes:“Some men need to witness female anger to believe in that woman’s love. Some women need to get angry to experience that love.”“You who call women the fairer sex, you may repress and deny all you want, but some of us were born with a howling void where our souls should sway.”“Information is like a feral cat: what it wants most is to be free and to bite someone. Who am I to stand in the way of the call of the wild.”“We like to forget that men imprisoned women in the house and expected gratitude in return.”“I learned that being female is as prefab, thoughtless, soulless, and abjectly capitalistic as a Big Mac. It’s not important that it’s real. It’s only important that it’s tasty.”

“All humans are bad. Most of us merely live our lives with our worst, most unethical acts lying like bodies clad in concrete, undiscovered, quiet, and dark.” - A Certain Hunger.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. But there is something within Dorothy that's different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.What a month to read this book! Buddy reading this book with others made it so fun. As you can tell from the synopsis above, it is not a light read and it is fairly graphic. However, the writing is beautiful and quite poetic for such a read! I think this is an amazing debut with such an interesting, albeit unlikeable, main character. However, I was fascinated by Dorothy’s story and how she arrived at her present state. Needless to say, I’m definitely excited for another book from this author.

Great reading

This book is dark, gruesome, detailed in the gorey. I love dark humor, thrillers, mysteries, etc but this was a bit too descriptive on the gruesome details. But, I'm also a very empathetic, sensitive type....so if it's too descriptive, I'm IN the book feeling, visually waaaaay too intensely. Just be prepared....she doesn't skim over anything. Possible spoiler coming...think of a surgeon describing step-by-step what is happening how every second is experienced....then twist that into a dark, gruesome situation. That sums it up. Great writing by the author...but too dark for someone like me.

I loved this book. I am going to recommend it to my book group, and loan it to someone, but I will request it back. I hate reading books a second time, bu this one I may want to crack open again. First, I loved Chelsea Summers’s writing style. And her vocabulary. My only regret is that I did not compile a vocabulary list while reading, and for that regret I may require a reread. Rarely is an author this talented — no, it’s not talent; it’s skill. Part is talent, but mostly it is skill. Some authors are talented (skilled?) at storytelling. Other authors are skilled at writing, composing prose. But Summers excelled at both. That brings me to Second: The story. I won’t give you a plot synopsis; you can pull that from the description. And I don’t want to give any spoilers. However, if you admire the English language, the craft of writing, the craft of storytelling, dry wit, food (yes, delicious food), womanhood, and a twist of thriller, horror, and suspense, read this novel. Read it to the last page, then loan it to someone else to give it a second read. And if Chelsea Summers reads my review: Don’t let another eight years pass before you write your second. The literature world needs you.

I couldn’t make it past the first chapter of this book. The introduction was…boring. I think the author put too much focus on explaining small details and using sophisticated words.*******EDIT*******: I decided to force myself to read past the first chapter and the remainder of this book is actually very engaging and enticing to read. I misjudged this book.