If I’d known what I was getting into, I wouldn’t have started. Thank goodness I didn’t know, though, because, in ways that are hard to describe, Summers is a brilliant prose stylist. 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.

Dorothy Daniels, a well-known American food critic turned serial killer, is a year into a life sentence at Bedford Hills Prison in New York, after getting away with murder — and cannibalism — for decades. Over 19 titled chapters, with headings such as Corpse Reviver #2, Banana Bread and Silage, Dorothy writes down her story from prison, longing, like all good sociopaths, to go down in history for her terrible crimes. i am also sure all the sex she loves telling the reader about having also feeds into this idea, but i have little interest in the sex lives of others, even less so in that of those who brag about it. for me, this makes this book read even more like a trashy novel with a 20-something protagonist. which might explain why it's so popular on tiktok). 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.Shaw-Ellis, Daisy; Weir, Keziah (December 2, 2020). "The Books and Totes That Will Get You Through This Winter". Vanity Fair . Retrieved 2020-12-02.

As I say, there’s no reason an over-the-top sexploitation style story should be so thoughtfully rendered, but thank goodness it is. Silverberg notes too that A Certain Hunger is "also a history of the internet, and how it has democratized writing and ‘steamrolled the playing field’ of criticism broadly." [4] Style [ edit ] this entire book is a white femcel fantasy. she is killing a jewish man because he won't have sex with her anymore and spends the entire book whining and lashing out about what she can't have. A Conversation With Chelsea G. Summers, Author Of 'A Certain Hunger' ". Audible.com. December 10, 2019 . Retrieved December 2, 2020.this is particularly egregious when it comes to the descriptions and discussion of cannibalism. i wouldn't have minded a casual tone from a psychopath, i would not expect anything else from commercial fiction. but this sanitised writing style somehow strips an inherently transgressive act off of its transgressiveness. It didn’t take long for the forensic psychology and criminal justice students to start fluttering to me, like common gray moths to a bonfire. Two weeks after I’d landed at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, and I’d received my first interview request from a Ph.D. candidate. One request became two, then three, then more. Like hail dropping from the sky, eager students fell before me, jostling each other for my attention. It was delightful to be so avidly courted by so many keenly interested young things. I felt like the belle of the carceral ball. In my jejune imagination, my dream lovers were uniform, each as beautiful, masculine, and replaceable as an Arrow shirt model. As a woman psychopath, the white tiger of human psychological deviance, I am a wonder, and I relish your awe. 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.