A Certain Hunger Hardcover – October 18, 2021

The writing is impressive and the story keeps you locked in to the very end. I'm an avid reader, this novel is firmly in my top five favorites. Dorothy Daniels is potentially the best written female character of this century. Read this novel!

“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.

I never thought I could like a person like Dorothy, a food critic who has many talents and interests. But the author makes Dorothy interesting, multifaceted, self-aware to a fault, so that any acts you might find disagreeable, when coming from her, seem… well if not acceptable, then somehow understandable. I was repulsed more than once reading this book, but I also hungered for the food Dorothy eats and makes, I suddenly had the urge to travel to Rome, to meet Italian men, to have duck in one of the best NYC restaurants. It’s the moments of sweetness that surprise and delight, and make Dorothy so human and in weird ways relatable. I suppose there is a beast in all of us. There but for the grace of God go we. Dorothy’s aim was to write a book about herself so she wouldn’t be forgotten and well I will never forget this book.

When you read the reviews for this book, head towards the middle ground if you want any sort of realistic expectations. This is not an ode to feminist power. This is not some sexy, sultry metaphor for womanhood.It is a story about an admitted narcissistic psychopath who, in her hubris, becomes her own undoing. It is a vile, repetitive, absolutely insufferable piece of work with entirely too much mind-numbing threads about food and sex (and this from someone who grins bloody feral when a woman owns her sexuality with such conviction) to the point where one feels as though they have rolled head first into a literal stream of consciousness that barely threads together.I rolled my eyes. I grit my teeth. I struggled.But I did blow through this in two days. Take what you will of that.

I got this for a book club not knowing what to expect but it absolutely hooked me. I read the whole thing in a day. It’s introspective and haunting and funny and scary all at once. I’ll remember Dorothy’s story for a long time. I would especially recommend for fans of authors like Ottessa Moshfegh!

I came across this book and it sounded interesting so I had to buy it. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect but I was definitely taken aback with what I read. I knew it was about a female killer and food but it ended up being so much more. Here, we have a woman named Dorothy who loves food. She also loves sex as much as she loves food. The story does not hold back on describing the food in detail. Making your mouth water. It also doesn't hold back on the sex. Telling you things that might make you blush. Then you have Dorothy's first murder, and then the next, and the next. These are quite detailed as well. She is a psychopath and knows it and is also okay with it. Between the hot sex scenes, the gory death scenes, and adding yummy food (for most part) I found myself in a constant uncomfortable state (albeit a good uncomfortable). I kept fidgeting and cringing and sometimes looking away. I really liked that about this book.About the only thing I didn't care for was Dorothy liked to talk, especially about herself. Sometimes this became a bit much and quite expansive. She would start talking about one thing then flip to another then flip to another almost to a point you forgot what she was talking about in the first place.For most part it was a weird and uneasy read that I found quite delicious.

I could tell five pages into this book that I would be reading it over and over. I have never read anything in my life that is more stylish or delightful. The satire sings on the page. The dark humor begs to be shared but it's not an experience that you CAN share with the plot being so gleefully over the top, so complicated, that the context would take away from the deftness of the writing. I saw myself in here so often, it's a deliciously millennial gossipy piece of work that was compulsively readable. The voice of the narrator is so incredibly well conceived that even as she's describing horrific acts of violence, you're careening along on the joyride with her. This is the type of work that Hanya Yanagihara could only dream of doing, and Chelsea wasn't even an actual lifestyle columnist! Smart, slick, perfectly plotted, and riotously funny, this book catapulted into my all time top three before I had even turned the last page. Not to be missed!

No suelo escribir reseñas pero es que este libro es muy bueno, divertido, grotesco, espectacularmente escrito y sobre todo brillante. Me encanta el humor negro que maneja la protagonista durante todo el libro y como nos va en cierta forma manipulando nuestras emociones. Me encantó.

Book used in a book club. Very good, fascinating read.

Nice to read a book with a female mc that is completely insane.

interesting, disturbing, similar to American Psycho.