Where to find it:Your local library or retail bookstore. In 2020 it was very hard to get a hold of but it's had a broader reprint since then.
What is it, in summary?: This novella is written from the perspective of Dorothy Daniels: food critic, convicted serial killer, cannibal. She's writing the story of what she did and why she did it from prison; she is not telling the whole truth, but she's definitely telling a lot of it, and what she is telling is pretty sensational.
What do you love about it?: Dorothy's unreliability as a narrator, the visceral and opulent approach to food and murder and sex, honestly almost everything. I feel like this book was made for me. It's dark humour with a feminist perspective, it's a highly capable protagonist with a blind spot the size of the moon, it's one iddy, indulgent bite that I could happily read in a single long afternoon.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Femslash (Dorothy/Emma). Emma is by far Dorothy's most important person and I'd love to see that demonstrated in fic.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Per above, serial killing/gore (usually rather detailed in their description), graphic sex, cannibalism.
A Certain Hunger - Chelsea G. Summers
Media: Novel
Approx length: 240 pages
Where to find it: Your local library or retail bookstore. In 2020 it was very hard to get a hold of but it's had a broader reprint since then.
What is it, in summary?: This novella is written from the perspective of Dorothy Daniels: food critic, convicted serial killer, cannibal. She's writing the story of what she did and why she did it from prison; she is not telling the whole truth, but she's definitely telling a lot of it, and what she is telling is pretty sensational.
What do you love about it?: Dorothy's unreliability as a narrator, the visceral and opulent approach to food and murder and sex, honestly almost everything. I feel like this book was made for me. It's dark humour with a feminist perspective, it's a highly capable protagonist with a blind spot the size of the moon, it's one iddy, indulgent bite that I could happily read in a single long afternoon.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it?: Femslash (Dorothy/Emma). Emma is by far Dorothy's most important person and I'd love to see that demonstrated in fic.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence): Per above, serial killing/gore (usually rather detailed in their description), graphic sex, cannibalism.