A Certain Hunger: Chelsea G. Summers

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To this, I laughed. I know what I am. It may not appear in the DSM-5, but just because you can’t prescribe a pill for us doesn’t mean we don’t exist. 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. I am a psychopath—and whatever their reasoning and whatever their diagnoses, the eager psychology and criminal justice students are right to study me. And if they’re wrong, I still enjoy their attention, and I’ll do what I must to encourage it.

There is something inside Dorothy that makes her different from everybody else. Something she's finally ready to confess. But beware: her story just might make you wonder how your lover would taste sautéed with shallots and mushrooms and deglazed with a little red wine. a b c d Silverberg, Amy (2020-12-01). "Why Can't Women Be Serial Killers, Too?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-12-02. 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. Ugh, this book. Murderous, cannibalistic cougar food critic got my attention, but it was like the author stopped at that idea herself and never went further. Apparently this was meant to be a sort of “Hey, women can be evil, too” treatise, but instead of developing that idea we get chapter after chapter of our psychopathic narrator detailing all the food and sex she has, and the endless murders and consumption of her lovers.

Chelsea G. Summers

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. here's how dorothy got caught, by the way: the supposedly intelligent psychopath threw away a receipt near the crime scene and forgot that trash cans don't magically melt when near a fire, unless they themselves are on fire. yet again, either a plothole or another showing of her stupidity, though i don't know which one makes me want to scream more. i get that chelsea, by showing dorothy deny alex's proposal, is trying to show that dorothy chose herself instead of alex and a life with alex, that she chose to remain who she is instead of becoming "just his wife", but in reality, all it shows is that she decided to destroy her and his life out of a pitiful desire to be unique. which, by the way, she very much is not. 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!

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.furthermore, how does emma not saying anything abt the many people dorothy killed show a sign of female friendship? isn't one of the earliest memories of this "friendship" dorothy having sex in emma's bed without her consent, thus making emma have to move out? so emma protects the person who tried to assault her and actively slaughtered a jewish man in the worst way possible, but we're supposed to think this is a great act of loyalty? frankly, emma and dorothy are both badly written characters who deserve no praise. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I started reading this book; but honestly what I got wasn’t it 👀 One of the most uniquely fun and campily gory books in my recent memory... A Certain Hunger has the voice of a hard-boiled detective novel, as if metaphor-happy Raymond Chandler handed the reins over to the sexed-up femme fatale and really let her fly." — The New York Times 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.

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. this is the most white feminist book i've ever read. it was racist, grotesque, classist, antisemitic, and added nothing to any of the conversations it was desperately trying to grab onto. 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.) There’s gristle in her toothsome tale. Dorothy has had certain other hungers too. The reader has become a willing victim, following her along, but finally she thrusts a metaphorical shiv: She did find love, near-perfect love, and it scared her nearly to death. “I like being by myself, you see. I just didn’t want to be alone. And now I never will be,” she says; now she’s in prison for life. You won't soon forget Dorothy or her delicious insights, but fair warning: This book might turn you into a vegetarian, if you aren't already." - Library Journal (starred review)A Certain Hunger,” Chelsea G. Summers’ debut novel, requires some chewing, and that is mostly — as Martha Stewart would put it — a good thing. Meet Dorothy Daniels, now 50-something and incarcerated at Bedford Hills, the supposedly upscale women’s prison in Connecticut where Stewart also did time, albeit for a different crime. Dorothy has a lot to say and at times her tangents about truffle hunting, prison cuisine and acrobatic love-making threaten to distract from the juicy marrow of her confessions. PDF / EPUB File Name: A_certain_hunger_-_Chelsea_G_Summers.pdf, A_certain_hunger_-_Chelsea_G_Summers.epub Dazzling and gruesome, Chelsea G. Summers has written a gripping tour de force about female friendship, haute cuisine, and how to filet a man and serve him with fine Italian wine. I could not put it down." - Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood

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 😭 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.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. 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. My head is a mess after this one, but this is definitely my kind of book. There's something so powerful about reading from a 50 year old woman's point of view, mostly because I feel like I rarely read female MCs over 30, especially when that woman consistently acts against the social pressures that aim to define womanhood. Yes, Dorothy is a psychopath murderous cannibal, but she's also telling us her story from a jail cell, so I'd consider this an exploration of womanhood and not a "treat men like slabs of meat because that's how they've treated you" approach to feminism horror. cannibalism may not be morally sound. but if you're willing to believe in yourself...it can be girlboss.