Poignant, relevant, and thought-provoking.

Eliza Clark has really outdone herself with this collection. I don't know that I've ever given a short story collection 5 stars, but every single story hits here.

If Clark ever decides to publish a full length sci-fi horror I'm here for it, just saying.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this fantastic and highly anticipated book. I'm telling all the horror girlies about it!

Also will have to buy a physical copy now because it's one of my favorite covers of the year.

In the late 2010s and early 2020s there has been a trend for short story collections by young women which explore issues relevant to modern life (particularly modern life as it is for women and girls) through a mixture of realist, speculative and horror fiction. I can list a number of them without thinking too much about it: "You Will Never Be Forgotten," "Bliss Montage," "You Know You Want This," "Out There," "Life Ceremony," "Cursed Bunny." "She’s Always Hungry," by Eliza Clark, slots comfortably into this trend. The opening story is about eating disorders. There is body horror and light-touch speculative fiction. There are stories about bad relationships and sexual trauma. There is a story written in an unconventional format: this, "The Shadow Over Little Chitaly," written as a series of online restaurant reviews, is the best thing in the book by a country mile.

Although none of the stories are actually about life online, this, like Honor Levy’s "My First Book," is a book shaped by the Internet. Tumblr/Twitter-type humor and cultural references run all the way through it, and it feels like one needs to be somewhat "online" to understand some of it. The stories are hampered by what feels like a need to make them superficially edgy yet, in essence, deeply conformist. You can see the cogs turning in some of the stories (here’s a story about disordered eating, a subject so many Millennial and Gen Z women will relate to. But the narrator must emphasize her body positivity - because God forbid a character obsessed with losing weight might seem fatphobic!) And I am not against trigger warnings, but when a book comes with an exhaustive list of them, which includes such benign things as "extensive descriptions of food," it gives you a certain picture of the intended audience. Lest these criticisms make me sound like an unhinged anti-woke Boomer, there are other problems. The sci-fi stories contain some truly terrible expositionary dialogue. "The Problem Solver" feels like a failed attempt to write a story that riffs on Roupenian’s "Cat Person." Once you figure out the premise of a story, it almost always plays out predictably. In "Build A Body Like Mine" for example the story cannot be building to anything *other* than a reveal of something weird. So when the reveal comes, there is no moment of shock. Similarly, "She’s Always Hungry," the story, is exactly what you would imagine a story called "She’s Always Hungry" by a young female writer to be like.

"She’s Always Hungry" seems designed to be read by teenagers making their first steps into adult fiction. That’s not a bad thing (better they read this than yet another toxic "spicy" romance), I’m sure it will sell well and be popular on Tiktok, but it doesn’t feel like a serious collection and represents a step backward in terms of quality. I think the author is very talented, and I loved her début "Boy Parts" which I thought was an excellent first novel showing a lot of promise, but I also think the unexpected success of "Boy Parts" has not been a good thing for her craft. This collection feels as though it has been rushed to publication before it was really ready. I feel for her - becoming a hot commodity in publishing at a young age must create a hell of a lot of pressure. As with many weak books I blame those involved in the editorial process - I think some editor should have had the guts to tell her this wasn’t good enough. I hope Clark can get out of this niche she’s written herself into and start working in some influences other than "I was on Tumblr in 2010," which can only engage a certain audience, and then only for so long.

3.25 stars

She’s Always Hungry is a weird, bleak, gore-y, real but not so real short story collection which explores personal themes along with a lot of broader societal themes like the perceptions of beauty, patriarchy (and if it was reversed), human vices (like most of them), global warming, the notion of power etc.etc. which are weaved within these absolutely bizarre stories.

I liked the author’s vision for the book — the way the stories touched genres like fantasy and sci-fi ever so slightly, while still maintaining their true essence of social commentary was something that gave me fresh perspective on each of these issues. I personally love short stories and it’s truly so amazing to see such a small piece of media have such a big impact on you — and that’s the beauty of it all I think.

I loved two stories from this collection ‘She’s Always Hungry’ and ‘Extinction Event’. [Also honorary mentions to ‘Shake Well’, ‘The Shadow Over Chitaly’, and ‘Hollow Bones’.]

She’s Always Hungry explores a matriarchal society and what would happen if women created outlandish rules for their communities to follow. The women in this story create their own terms of addressing each other, their own myths and legends, and societal roles for the different genders, and men are essentially seen as breeding machines. I liked how this short story had it’s own sub-plot while having the overarching plot of a matriarchal society. It was a little crazy and big brained and I was so so impressed.

Extinction Event is set in a world where pollution has marred the world to a degree that the Earth is about to self-destruct. This story was a horrifying reality check of the lengths humans would go to to hide from their mistakes, and the further destruction they’re willing to bring about to “make up” for their previous ones. It also traverses through this system of hierarchy that we’ve built and somehow sworn to stuck by, and how authority figures will only do what they want. The moral of the story was that we’re fucked so that’s that.

Overall, this was a decent collection of stories but it’s not my favourite one I’ve read so far. I think some stories were very simple in premise and execution and didn’t make feel like ‘omg I’m so impressed’. I also think that only if the stories were a little longer, maybe the plot would’ve had more dimension instead of just the characters (also no, this was not a no plots, just vibes book and I feel as if that often times defeats the purpose of a short story). Honestly, if you’ve never read a short story collection, I would and would not recommend this to you based on the vibe you’re going for. (Eliza Clark said stay weird and quirky with this book.)

Mayn thanks to Harper perennial and netgalley for the free ARC copy. This is an honest review of the book.

I thought I would love this book. I love Eliza Clarks writing and this is written as beautifully as I was expecting but it was a bit hit and miss.

I really enjoyed build a body like mine, she's always hungry and extinction events. They were the stand out stories for me.

The problem solver and goth girl held my attention but some of the others I didn't enjoy, I think maybe the point of them went over my head.
If you enjoy Elisa Clarks style I would definitely give this a try as there are some real gems in here. But for me there was slightly more misses than hits.

Short stories aren’t my thing. Eliza IS my thing. So I was curious how this would go. For the most part, it went swimmingly. There wasn’t any story that I disliked. A few standouts were build a body like mine and extinction event. I’d read full novels of those. Both have themes that I thoroughly enjoy. On the surface this collection may seem disjointed but once you sit with it, it comes together

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

There were some really interesting stories throughout here! As I went I felt like the narrative voice got stronger, I enjoyed the writing style and the descriptions were super visceral and violent