this was a fun, readable, interesting collection of stories, but i didn't find any particularly memorable or brilliant stories for my preferences.

Absolutely devoured this. Signature Eliza gore, this is such a good collection of messed up stories. In particular the acne story will not escape my brain! Will be recommending this to any and all lovers of horror and gore, and anyone trying to get into Eliza. I think she is a master of short stories, making them a great length!

Loved this creepy collection! Reads really well and lots of diverse stories, gave off a different vibe than boy parts which was nice.

Rating: 2.65 leaves out of 5
-Stories: 2.4/5
-Writing: 2.75/5
Genre: contemporary, horror, litfic, thriller
-contemporary: 4/5
-horror: .75/5
-litfic: 4/5
-thriller: 2/5
Type: Ebook
Worth?: Meh

Hated|Disliked|Meh|It Was Okay|Liked|Really Liked|Loved

Want to thank Netgalley and publishers for giving me the chance to read this book.

Greatly disappointed in the lack of horror. At least make it more than MAYBE 10% of the content. My top 3 stories out of all of them:

1st place: The Shadow Over Little Chitaly
-Was it scary? Not a chance in hell but I did love how out of the box the writing had been. I like the format Eliza used for writing this story and honestly this one could have been a scifi book in itself and would have done wonders in that category.

2nd place: Company Man
Maybe like 3% horror in this but I do like the fact the woman has to live with guilt for what she did.

3rd place: Hollow Bones
Closer to the horror aspect but also kinda icky. There is some gore aspect but I did LOVE the scifi in this one.

Honestly if Eliza wanted to give a try in scifi I would pick up that book quickly.

Eliza Clark does it again, this time with a collection of short stories leaning into speculative fiction like we haven't seen from her before, still maintaining signature undertones of feminine justice and the unsavory. In all honesty, not all of the stories quite worked for me, but even when they didn't I found myself still thinking, "How did she ever come up with this?" I mean to say, despite not all being my cup of tea, I remain impressed by the craft, nonetheless. The stories that hit, really hit and scratched that itch I'd been dying to get at as soon as I caught wind of Clark releasing another book.

I remain a loyal fan.

Eliza Clark serves us with a plethora of short stories in 𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘈𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺. She has cooked us (pun intended) stories of multiple genres. We have contemporary, dystopian, horror and sci-fi.

All the 11 stories centre around the main theme - hunger. I love how the title of the book aptly describes all the eleven stories. 𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘈𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺 with the 'she' representing the female characters in each story. Each of the character suffers from hunger; we have someone who is hungry for food, another who hungers for love, beauty, attention and power.

I absolutely adore Eliza Clark, and these stories certainly showcase her signature blend of uniqueness, grotesqueness, and often dark humor. I have read 𝘉𝘰𝘺 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 and 𝘗𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 before, and her writing is just impeccably beautiful.

It is really hard to rate an anthology as some stories come out strong; some weak. That being said, some stories are my favourite such as 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘚𝘩𝘦'𝘴 𝘈𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘳𝘺, 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘈 𝘉𝘰𝘥𝘺 𝘓𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘭𝘭 and 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘔𝘢𝘯.

I usually steer clear from short stories but this collection completely wowed me! However, do read the TWs as this might not be for everyone. Among some of the TWs are cannibalism, r*pe, bodily harm, recreational drug use, parasitic infestation to lose weight, graphic details of body-horror.

Overall, I enjoyed this so much and I highly recommend this to everyone. Fans of Clark's will absolutely love this. Those who have never read Eliza Clark's works before might find yourselves a convert after reading this. Just don't read it after your meals. 😉

Thank you so much Harper Perennial for this copy!

Wow Eliza Clark never fails to surprise me. I loved Penance and these short stories are also so good. I love how Clark explores different aspects and dimensions of ‘hunger’ in these stories. The stories are spooky and thought-provoking.

She's Always Hungry 🔪🩸

I love a good short story collection, especially ones that are weird. This collection promised just that. Some stories really did hit the mark for me, but overall, I’d say it was just okay.

The book offers 11 stories in only 135 pages, which felt a bit cramped. Most stories span about 12-16 pages, and honestly, that's a pretty tight space to establish a whole world, set up a situation, and delve into it.

While many of the stories did eventually come together, I often found myself disoriented at the beginning of each one. The author jumps between different universes and worlds in the seperate stories, which requires you to reset and pay close attention every time, making it difficult to read them all in one go.

So, I’d suggest reading these stories as bite-sized treats between other books, giving each one the space to unfold and sink in rather than rushing from one to the next.

One element I really enjoyed was the theme of hunger woven through the collection in so many unusual forms. Each story explores hunger differently: there’s traditional yearning, consumption in various forms—even cannibalism—and some very strange appetites that exist in other worlds, among creatures and people alike. This unifying thread of “hunger” added a fascinating, eerie cohesion to the diversity of stories.

my favourite stories were:
🧜‍♀️ She's Always Hungry
🦴 Hollow Bones
🌵 Extinction Event
💊 Nightstalkers

I loved this author’s last book but I don’t think short stories work for me in general. Some of these were a little out there and I couldn’t finish them and the ones I did finish didn’t wow me as much as I would have liked. I struggle with rating short story collections because of this. I look forward to this author’s next novel.

I loved Eliza Clark's last book, Penance, and was very excited to receive an early copy of this collection of short stories. I was impressed how different these stories are than Penance, and what a wild ride they were. All the stories are some level of unsettling and creepy. The range within this collection is quite wide -- multiple genres and a variety of tones. Several stories are speculative fiction/sci-fi and I was not expecting that but enjoyed what Eliza Clark created in a short amount of time.

In "Build a Body Like Mine" the main character encounters one if my worst nightmares, having a parasite. It was incredibly unsetting and a good commentary on diet culture.

Many of the stories contain very disturbing imagery — especially in "She’s Always Hungry." It made me very glad I don’t eat fish!

My favorite story was probably "The Shadow Over Little Chitaly" it was hilarious and creative. I got totally invested and would read a full novel of that! 

The story that was the creepiest for me was "The King" - very unsettling and some very intense imagery.

Many of these stories are pretty dark, and not for the faint of heart -- read content warnings if there are specific subjects you want to avoid.

I cannot wait to read more by Eliza Clark!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

While unique, this short story collection was a miss for me. Granted this was my first dive into Eliza Clark’s work, I just did not connect with any of the stories like I had hoped.

So often with short fiction collections, there is at least one story that doesn't land. Not so with this one. Every story in this collection was unusual, nuanced, and horrifically, wonderfully dark in its own way. These stories, individually and as a whole, are particularly invested in untangling the relationship between the self and the body - when do we have control over our own bodies, and how much control do we have, and what happens when that control is taken away - and this collection is entirely unafraid of playing with genre and form. Within the eleven stories in this collection, we have: science fiction set in a version of the future where humans have begun to explore space and have made first contact with non-human species (Hollow Bones); science fiction dealing with the climate crisis (Extinction Event); science fiction dealing with violence, gender, and the apocalypse (The King); a story told entirely through online reviews of a restaurant (The Shadow Over Little Chitaly); a story told in the style of a folktale (She's Always Hungry); speculative fiction about societal expectations of female beauty and female bodies (Build a Body Like Mine, Shake Well); pseudo-historical fiction about loss, identity, and lies (Company Man); and realism that explores sexuality, masculinity, and violence against women's bodies (Goth GF, The Problem Solver, Nightstalkers). These stories are varied, frequently bizarre, frequently funny, and immensely compelling.

Probably my favorite of the collection is its closer, Company Man - I haven't been able to get it out of my head, and it exemplifies a lot of what I think is so strong about this collection as a whole. This story, about an office worker with a dark secret and horrifying dreams who begins to fall for a man working at a neighboring building in their Soviet-style city - is taught, tense, and thematically strong, blending a propulsive plot with a satisfying twist, a deftly rendered sense of atmosphere, and a genuine exploration of how much it is possible for people to change and how responsible an individual is for violence. Unfortunately, I thought the title story (She's Always Hungry) was the most perplexing in the collection - it tells the story of a small fishing village where men are subjugated by women and begin to hear the call of a voice in the ocean. While the writing was beautiful and the atmosphere was strong, I struggled the most with this story to understand exactly what question was being asked by the text, and I wasn't ultimately sure what it had been trying to do. This stood out, as with every other story in the collection, I felt I had a good understanding of its intentions and was satisfied that it succeeded in its purpose.

Fans of Eliza Clark's novels, Boy Parts and Penance, will absolutely find something to love in this vicious little collection, as will other readers looking for speculative work that engages with identity, gender, and the thousand horrors inherent in existing in a body. The dissection of violence and the place of gendered violence in society that characterize Clark's other work is very much present here as well. The trigger warnings for this collection are extensive in the text itself, but particular heads-up for body horror, sexual assault, and depictions of eating disorders.

I am not usually a fan of short stories but I am a fan of Eliza Clark and literary horror, and am so glad I picked this up. Rating collections can be difficult, and there were a couple of stories in here that didn't resonate as much with me, but I LOVED "The King" and highlighted more hilarious lines in it than I do in some full-length books. I also really enjoyed "Extinction Event", and have been thinking about it a little sadly since finishing it--unfortunately realistic for a post-apocalyptic tale. Even in the stories I didn't love as much, though, I always appreciate Eliza Clark's voice and style. There's more sci-fi stories in this than I expected, which I was not at all mad about, but if that's not your jam you may not be as big of a fan. Overall, though, I definitely recommend if you're looking for something to break up longer books without sacrificing quality or depth.

Hunger is the driving force behind Eliza Clark’s bold and unsettling short story collection, which explores the many ways it manifests in our lives—craving beauty, power, love, salvation, and survival. With her signature blend of visceral imagery and psychological depth, Clark crafts stories that evoke both discomfort and introspection, often lingering on the grotesque and the painful. While the collection is ambitious and thematically cohesive, its execution can feel uneven, with some stories striking a deep emotional chord while others fade more quickly from memory. Nonetheless, this is a compelling meditation on the human condition, showcasing Clark’s fearless exploration of our most primal desires.

<i>Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this e-arc!!</i>

I gave this a 3.5 star rating. It’s multiple short stories so there were some I loved that I wanted to read more of and some that I struggled to get through. My favorites were Nightstalkers, The Shadow Over Little Chitaly, and The Company Man. Now looking back I enjoyed the ones rooted more in reality than the sci-fi ones. I’m not opposed to sci-fi stories by any means but I think it’s harder to flesh out a full world in a short medium. I think it also packs a bigger punch into the overall theme of the book when it’s more realistic.

3/5

She’s Always Hungry is a short story collection featuring a common theme throughout: hunger. Even though her collection ranges from a wide selection of genres - we get speculative fiction, literary horror, and a hint of sci-fi, Eliza Clark has such a grasp on tone. With a dark, atmospheric, and unsettling vibe, the author delves into the darker themes of human desire and the complexities of the human experience.

I’ve read both of her full-length novels this year, so I was probably a bit biased when reading this, but this collection was just ok for me. Certain stories weren’t for me, like: ‘The Problem Solver,’ ‘Nightstalkers,’ ‘The Shadow Over Little Chitaly,’ ‘Shake Well,’ ‘The King,’ ‘She’s Always Hunger,’ and ‘Build a Body Like Mine.’ There were a few in this collection that I did really like, stories like ‘Company Man,’ ‘Goth GF,’ ‘Hollow Bones,’ ‘Extinction Event,’ ‘Shake Well,’ and ‘Build a Body Like Mine.’ However, considering that half was just ok for me - this was a very mid-reading experience. I wish certain stories were expanded more as a lot of them felt cut off and not built upon, which is one of the reasons short story collections are so hard to read and like. I will continue to read Eliza Clark’s novels, but this was a disappointment.

Short story collections and I don’t always get along, but I LOVED She’s Always Hungry. The stories found here were a great blend of genre, ranging in apocalyptic (my favorite) to body horror to even a little bit of sci-fi, and she did it all so well. While the stories varied, the common theme of hunger/desire ran throughout and I love how that tied back to the collection name. There are a few instances where that could be triggering for some (Build a Body Like Mine and The Shadow Over Little Chitaly focus A LOT on food and consumption), but the author does include content warnings at the end if you need them.

I really enjoyed all of the stories in this collection, but the standouts for me included:
She’s Always Hungry: matriarchal society, mythological creatures, body horror, the men suffer.
The King: one of the longest stories, post-apocalyptic look at society, monsters, oddly funny
Extinction Event: also somewhat apocalyptic, looks at climate change & how we exploit, sci-fi look at new discoveries
Company Man: I don’t want to spoil anything, but oof

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for a review copy. Maybe I should be giving short stories another chance!

it’s an unsettling if not outright weird collection, but if you’re an eliza clark fan, that’s what you’re here for! Desire, isolation, and perversity, are central preoccupations, as is Clark’s sense of the body as both a cage and a space ripe for invasion, pulsating and horribly vulnerable.

Short stories can be tough to tackle & I don't tend to gravitate a ton towards them. I enjoyed some of them, and others I found myself wanting to speed read to just get through them. Some of the stories were strange, others were more interesting & gripping. Overall, I thought this was okay.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

She's Always Hungry is a compilation of H.P. Lovecraft and Shirley Jackson-esque short horror stories that will leave you thinking and sometimes also leave you grimacing.

I was expecting them to be somewhat darker knowing Eliza Clark's reputation but I wasn't disappointed by the level of darkness I found. However, I was somewhat disappointed (and almost bored) by the content of a couple of the stories and actually skipped the latter half of Extinction Event because I couldn't force myself to read any further.

The combination of body horror, science-fiction, and overall perversity paved the way for an interesting grouping of stories that are not for the faint of heart. But the references to real-life issues within these stories is what I found so gripping and important. She's Always Hungry is not just an addition to the horror genre, it is a commentary on so many social concerns and it found the perfect audience in me.

3.75 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Perennial for the Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.