While I'm sure this will be the perfect book for a lot of readers, it's not working for me at all.

I don't like Angelina, our MC, and I'm finding it painful to spend so much time in her head.

The content is a whole lot of drama within a family that is a hot mess. I'm not finding the vibe "sexy" at all.

Pacing is slow, and the writing isn't holding my attention.

DNF

This book was a bit of a slow burn but whew did it deliver! Possession? Check! Amazing sapphic chemistry? Check! Suspense? Check! It grapples with the prejudice of small insular towns, and familial enmeshment, through multiple lenses in a really interesting way.

Based on the description, reviews, and blurbs, I was so sure I would love this, but I actually found it kind of a slog and DNFed at 21%.

Reasons I didn’t like this:

-The folktale/fairytale-like setting combined with the modernness of the characters didn’t really gel for me—it felt like it should either be a fairytale or set in the modern real world, but not some of both. It’s not the *concept* of a modern fairytale that I object to (I think HERE IN AVALON by Tara Isabella Burton does it well, for example). But this one just didn’t quite work for me.
-It’s set in the 90s but doesn’t actually *feel* recognizably 90s. I just have to take the book’s word for it that it’s set in the 90s.
-I didn’t find this monster scary enough, even though I’m pretty easily scared.
-There’s something about the prose that slightly rubs me the wrong way. It’s not obviously bad—it’s fine—but somehow it feels a bit stilted. It’s not about lush vs. spare—I’ve read and loved both lush and spare prose. It’s more a quality of, like, seeing the puppet strings. And I don’t mean “good writing shouldn’t call attention to itself.” I mean it doesn’t feel real or organic, it feels like I’m watching the author play with dolls, just picking up a character and setting them down over there. It feels like eating dry cake. I'm sure lots of readers will have no problem with it; I'm just picky about prose.

i was excited for the coming of spooky season so i decided to pick this novel up.

this was sold to me as a horror novel with queer characters and a passionate romance between lesbians. but what i got was ...eight to twelve hours of sleep. yes, sleep is great, never miss out on it! no, this novel isn't interesting enough to stay awake just a little bit longer for.

ok i know it's early into the book but i do judge whether im gonna get hooked on a book or not by its first chapter. my golden rule is never judge a book by its cover, judge it by its first chapter--it's important and it sets the tone for the rest of the novel.
explain to me why in the first chapter are we explaining the characters' family trees when we could very well be dropped right into the action .....i feel like im reading what's supposed to be a first draft's first chapter.

where's the odd prickling sensation that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand, where's the buildup of that tension before we get introduced to this "monstrous force" spoken about in the novel's description? where's the hint of horny from our main character that will propel us to sink our teeth into this alleged "passionate romance" later on?

why are we listing the characters and their family members and the weird tangled mess they seem to be? are we supposed to be reading a literary coming of age novel about a lesbian coming to terms with the fraught relationships she's gonna continue to live with for the rest of her life because of the fluid nature of her sexuality that her close-minded family just couldn't accept, or a horror story with monsters and passions and high stakes romance??

i even skimmed chapter one to see if in the later chapters it'll get interesting (chapters 2 to 4) enough to raise intrigue and drive me back to finishing the first chapter.

but chapter 2 had the same vibe as chapter 1. now we are in wattpad territory, as in indulging the pressing urge to describe your original character as someone so interesting. the hair color, eye color, family history, etc. wouldnt be surprised if blood types were thrown in there too.

we get it, you love your OCs. i don't, not yet. give me the tension, hold me in suspense. don't throw your characters' slambooks at me within the first few chapters and call it a day.

maybe i'll pick this back up give it another chance. i need compelling arguments from readers who've finished it tho, guess i'll see those once this gets published.

Thank you NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for the eARC.

his story delivered everything I hoped for, combining compelling horror with psychological depth. The concept was spot-on, and the strong character development added to my enjoyment.

I devoured this book, and if it could devour me back I would let it in a heartbeat. I genuinely cannot remember the last time I obsessed over a book like this; I thought about it during every quiet moment, sacrificed sleep over reading another chapter, and when I finally reached the end I felt so delightfully satiated. The temptation to pick it up and start the story over again is lingering even as I write my review.

Feast While You Can is unsettling and gritty and terrifying at times, while presenting the reader with characters I want so badly to be friends with (or perhaps just be), who made me laugh at their dumb jokes and cry over their heartbreak, while the threat of the Plot hung over all of us.

I love monsters and lesbians and this book was a love letter to both. This book is superbly written by talented authors with a twist that I think every reader of horrors or thrillers can enjoy, but most of all this book is for lesbians, and I am so so thankful it exists.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

I really wanted to sink into this story, as I found the premise very interesting, but the style of writing jumped around too much for me.

This was truly spectacular! The possession story was terrifying and intense, fully capturing the terror of losing control over one's body and mind. However, it was also supplemented by some of the hottest sex scenes I've ever read? The chemistry between the main characters was as electric as the best of romance novels. Really knocks both genres out of the park.

3.5 stars

I'm not sure how well this worked as a "horror" story to me, but as a romance it was great! I think the horror elements complement the romance and add stakes, but I don't know how invested I was in those horror elements themselves. The writing is great though, and I loved the characters and the slowburn between them. I also really enjoyed how the characters' relationships and pasts were slowly revealed to us throughout the story.

Ohh, this book is one to sink your teeth into! It’s a delightful horror with fucked up family and relationship dynamics and a lot of genuinely terrifying moments. I started reading this at night and the general atmosphere of it made me have to put it down and read it in the light of day— only really something that happens to me when I’m playing video games. The writing is literary and punch-y, interesting and engaging. It’s compulsively readable in the best way. I don’t think I’ll be able to recommend this one enough.

Compulsively readable and bone-chilling, Clements and Datta solidify their writing partnership as one for the history books. A romantic, monstrous horror novel that will make you wish you could turn on more lights.

Holy fuck, this book is horror romance at its best. God-tier character work. A SAPPHIC ROMANCE. THE TENSION. And the monster was fucking scary in a multi-layered kind of way. This is one of my fav reads of the year, if not my top read. Just DAMN. Going to be thinking about this one for a long time.

I was not a fan of this book. There wasn’t a clear line of who or what I was reading….cant even tell you what the point of the book or storyline was to give a proper review.

Meaty and satieting.

Angelina is the defacto princess of the small mountain town of Cadenze. Mixed-race and queer, she uses her charisma and deep familial roots to charm her town to accept her. Where some might find her role suffocating, she revels in it, loving her town with her whole self.

On the day that her handsome childhood crush reluctantly returns to Cadenze, Angelina awakens a hungry monster.

Full of rich allegory and beautiful prose, Feast While You Can stradles that fantastic line between being literary and being eminently readable.

With so many moving parts, it would be easy to lose sight of one in favor of the other. Slow-burn horror, queer romance, dynastic family drama. But they are interwoven expertly.

In a year full of fantastic books, this one is easily a top contender for my book of the year. Absolutely delicious.

ARC provided by NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing.

Thank you for sending this to me! I loved the setting of the book so much. Once it picked up I really enjoyed it. I loved how the monster in the story!

I picked this up because I loved this author duo's romance book, The View Was Exhausting, but I couldn't get into Feast While You Can. The "monster metaphor" was a little heavy handed for me. I'm sure people who are interested in the plot will like this and I hope they do! It just wasn't for me.

This book was entirely unexpected, from the irreverent tone to the deeply wrought characters. I loved its blend of horror and literary fiction, and the small-town Italian setting was richly developed too. It also had some incisive commentary on race, though I do with it had taken that element further. And unfortunately, for those like me who care deeply, the dog does not survive in the end. Be forewarned!! It's still an amazing book (and it has to be all that much more amazing because animal harm usually makes me DNF/rate lower) and very much worth a read if you like weird, twisted sapphic stories.

A lesbian queering of a familiar horror trope. Angelina lives in an isolated rural Italian town. She is gay and has always felt like an outsider in this conservative village, and yet despite this, she has no desire to leave and she resents those who have moved away for bigger cities. Her brother's ex, Jagvi, came out as gay and moved to a larger neighbouring city but Angelina feels existentially chained to her hometown, enamored with Jagvi but still refusing to see her home as provincial backwater. She doubly embodies the idea of "queer failure"—neither living up to the heteronormative expectations of her family nor conforming to the hipster urbanism of the other queer people in her life. One day, at a family gathering, where her brother and cousins trade local folklore about a monster lurking in a nearby cave, Angelina inadvertently provokes the very same enigmatic creature, a primordial being which periodically feeds off the lives, futures and loved ones of those in the town. The creature (often just described as "the thing") follows her to her home, attacks her and demonically inhabits her thoughts. In order to fend off the monster, Angelina and Jagvi must confront their unrequited feelings for one another and embrace all their desires to defeat it.

Simply described as "the thing", the monster in this tale obviously alludes to the scifi classic The Thing From Another Planet but, in its wild descriptions of insatiable appetite and wolfish feeding, the novel gestures more to the 1983 classic, The Hunger, about a seductive Sapphic vampire who woos and traps men and women alike, subsisting off human blood to maintain her ageless immortality. One might also think of Stephen King's It, a similar horror novel in which an unnameable creature returns every generation to feed off the unfulfilled lives of children. This novel adds queer messiness to this veritable tradition of genre fiction, with rollicking drama and sex.

Absolutely loved this book. It's probably going to be one of my top reads of the year. It seamlessly blends steamy romance and horror with the beautiful character development and prose that made me fall in love with this writing team's previous book, The View Was Exhausting. I enjoy horror, but prefer a more literary take, so this was perfect. Thank you for the advanced copy.

Let me preface with the fact that I usually don't read horror. I tend to go for witchy romances, maybe a bit of occult mystery. But I really liked this book. I'll admit, it started a bit slow but once it picked up, I couldn't get enough. The portrayal of growing up different in a small town was so accurate and I wonder if that's why it felt slow for me at first, because it's a slow and sleepy small town. The town is functionally it's own character in this book and the way our histories cling to us. I thought the monster and how it wove in and out was handled brilliantly. Especially the moments where you don't know the monster is there at first. Definitely would recommend this as a reasonably quick read.

RATING: 5/5 STARS

I was actually shocked by how much I loved this novel because horror is my least read genre but it's MIKAELLA CLEMENTS and ONJULI DATTA of the THE VIEW WAS EXHAUSTING, so I should have known FEAST WHILE YOU CAN would be just as decadent and unputdownable!!

WOW, where to start...

1. CADENZE
The ugly-beautiful setting of this book was a quasi-character in itself. The small town of Cadenze, afforded a touch of anthropomorphism, felt like a breathing entity that was mysterious and a little wild, infused into Angelina and at points amorphous like the monster/evil spirit. Angelina's anchor to home and Jagvi's pull away from it created a really dynamic point of conflict.

2. THE MONSTER
Reading the scenes with the monster made me realize it had been a while since a book brought me to the edge of my seat, sweating, barely blinking... at one point I was forced to stop reading and do life things, but I was in a thrall until I could get back to this book. I thought this monster was especially scary, in an incredibly creative and slippery way. I don't want to spoil anything, so trust me that the psychological warfare this monster unleashed was quite something.

3. ANGELINA AND JAGVI AND PATRICK
I had to include all three of them in this bullet point because I was just CAPTIVATED by this messy dynamic. My reading of this book was serendipitously timed shortly after the release of the HIT ME HARD AND SOFT album, and apart from that soundtrack being a great backdrop to this shadowy novel, Angelina and Patrick's relationship was absolutely giving Billie and Finneas. I loved the exploration of interdependence, obligation, unconditional love, and protectiveness in their bond. AND ON TOP OF THAT Jagvi's interplay in that relationship and secrets that laid there - just a wild ride. The tension between Angelina and Jagvi was stretched out so perfectly, the reader could bask in it. And you can imagine all of those emotions amid the horrific persecutory atmosphere the monster created...

I devoured this terrifying and risqué novel in essentially a single setting and highly recommend for romance/horror fans looking for something to sink their teeth into!!