A Certain Hunger: Chelsea G. Summers

Product Information

When I was very young—long before I ever lost my virginity or even kissed a boy, around twelve, I think—I had a vision. I imagined throwing a lavish affair, a sort of punctuation mark on my adult life. I saw myself inviting all my lovers, present and past, to a dinner party. I knew even as puberty was dawning, fluffy and pointed as a kitten, that my life would be rich with men. These men, I imagined, would be plentiful, interesting, attractive, and, above all, devout. For the first time in more than a decade, I have a job—you can’t freelance in prison. In The New York Times, Silverberg noted the book's noir style, saying, " 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." [4] 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. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I started reading this book; but honestly what I got wasn’t it 👀

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. These escapades are teed up with arresting, comic lines: “Giovanni. I killed him, and ate his liver. It was an accident, of course.” There is the sense throughout of a brave writer who pushes things to their limits. Nothing is sacred: “I knew from a young age that motherhood was a cage I never wanted to inhabit. Children make me turn on the oven and reach for the rosemary.”

Chelsea G. Summers

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.

Then it just kept going on like that with the same flow of popping in and out of timelines, present to memory montage and I got really frustrated. I just wanted to know how she planned on ending her next lovers. 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 A Conversation With Chelsea G. Summers, Author Of 'A Certain Hunger' ". Audible.com. December 10, 2019 . Retrieved December 2, 2020.Reading about murder hasn’t ever been my hard point; but combining food and cannibalism reminded me of Bones’s serial killer; Gormogon 🫣 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. the entire concept of dorothy having a meltdown and starting to blame emma makes absolutely no sense. dorothy was suspected way before she ever even POSSIBLY told emma anything, at all. so that entire plot point is either a huge plot hole by chelsea or it's yet again another example of how stupid dorothy is.

cannibalism may not be morally sound. but if you're willing to believe in yourself...it can be girlboss. 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. 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. 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. Summers, Chelsea G (2019-03-09). "How to Write a Novel (and Heal Your Ravaged Heart)". Medium . Retrieved 2020-12-02.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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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

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. 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. 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. in comparison, 'a certain hunger' pretends it offers a lot but offers nothing of substance in reality. it is - and i cannot say this enough - vapid, shallow. where its themes and topic call for complexity, it chooses an outdated simplistic view (e.g. feminity and gender - what does it have to offer that even tumblr darlings of ten years ago have not already offered?) it is giving #girlboss, it is giving #empowerment in the most uncritical uncomplex manner possible.