3.75 Stars

A coming-of-age story that is chock-full of female rage, a story of maternal bonding, and... cannibalism. Dang crafted a wonderful novel that hit it's mark. The writing was more fitting for a younger crowd, while I'd argue the content is aimed towards an older crowd reflecting on their childhood. 13 year old me would've read and loved it, 27 year old me read, loved, and understood it.

What It’s About:

Yet another coming-of-age cannibalism story (I read another last month), we follow Ronny, a young Vietnamese American girl, through a summer filled with compounding traumas. As she navigates adolescence and the changing dynamics of her small family, she develops an insatiable appetite for raw meat. Unexpectedly, she finds connection with her mother and learns more about her family’s history and is ultimately able to embrace both this newfound familial closeness as well as her hunger.

Why I Liked It:

This book has a hazy and bleak summertime feel to it, somewhat similar to that of The Guest. E.K. Sathue (Author of youthjuice) described it as “hypnotic” and I’d agree - I see heat waves rippling off the sidewalk and distorting the characters when I think back on it. It wasn’t my favorite of the female rage → cannibalism pipeline books I’ve read as of late, but I really appreciated the infusion of food imagery and Vietnamese culinary culture threaded throughout. If you enjoy complicated mother/daughter relationships and/or Jennifer’s Body, you might like this one.

This was a strange, disgusting, graphic book about adolescence, female rage and cannibalism. If that sounds like something you want to read about, give this a shot! A few of these scenes are going to stick with me for a while, and I think I'm gonna stick with a salad for dinner tonight.

Thank you for the arc!!
I literally stayed up until 2 am to finish this in one sitting that’s how good this book is. I am OBSESSED. I cried literally 20% in and the hits kept coming, but I couldn’t look away!! Amazing narrator, amazing sensory details, love all the characters (my favorite was the aunt though. She was so funny). Also despite being vegetarian and allergic to almost all of the food in this book it made me soooo hungry. Can’t say much because I don’t want to spoil it, and this book is best going in blind, but you HAVE to pick it up when it’s released. Early in the year but I’m 100% confident it’ll be one of my top 10 reads.
5 stars!!!

Cannabilism seems to be trending in the literary world these days, and I'll eat it up every time (pun intended). I think this book did a great job exploring themes of grief, trauma, and female rage, and I like that a lot of questions were left unanswered at the end. Even though this book was pretty short, it had a slow build up and a satisfying conclusion.

Never read a book that made me want to go vegetarian, but here we are.

“What Hunger” tells the story of Ronny a 13 year old child and her immigrant Vietnamese family. Two rounds of tragedy later and Ronny finds herself wanting to follow a very specific and disturbing diet.

Was very interesting how the author combines all the elements of a coming-of-age story and incorporates it with all these food elements, a heaping amount of female-rage, and dash of revelations that make for a very interesting read.

I read this one shortly after the finishing ‘The Lamb” by Lucy Rose and I am on a real cannibalism kick, apparently. The prose in this is gorgeous and spare and full of righteous female anger. It centers on a teenager who endures tragedy and finds herself insatiably hungry, metaphorically and literally. Deng has a lot to say about generational trauma and how it’s passed down through generations, and also just how much it sucks being a teenage girl. The writing about Vietnamese heritage and being the child of immigrant parents is also really beuatiful, if heartbreaking at times. This is definitely body horror, and comparisons to “Jennifer’s Body” and “Little Fires Everywhere” are apt for sure, but for me the best comparison is Julie Ducournau’s “Raw.” I love books about angry, vengeful women.

What Hunger by Catherine Dang

Release Date: August 12, 2025
Genre: Lit Fic, YA, Horror

Content Warnings: s/a, cannibalism, death of a child

Themes: coming-of-age, grief, feminine rage

My Thoughts: You had me at mother daughter bonding over cannibalism. The story and characters were well rounded. The writing was just a little too YA for my taste.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Simon & Schuster for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for the E-ARC! I enjoyed this book, it very much describes generational trauma and what can be passed down from one person to the next. It was interesting, some parts were a tad slow but overall, it was good.

The summer before she begins high school, Veronica has two traumatic events happen to her, shaping her uncontrollable hunger. I liked the use of body horror to convey this coming-of-age story, as traumatic events (and I’d even argue puberty) consume us and we don’t always know how to deal with it. Teenage angst and immigrant parents who don’t always understand her or her brother Tommy, Veronica begins to crave, and therefore enjoy, the taste of human flesh.

I really liked the use of food in this story. Reading the authors note before I started reading, she talked about how growing up with her mothers cooking and during COVID in 2020, she learned a lot. Food in this book is constantly talked about as a delicacy and privilege, which plays into how Veronica begins to view the concept of eating raw meat. At one point, she admits she’s thankful for the butcher down the road from her for prepping and taking good care of the meat, of which she is about to enjoy with blood running down her face and hands, staining her clothes.

This book is packed with so much grief, female rage and the need to feed.

While the whole “hunger” plot line has been done many times before, I still enjoyed the overall story and how the author explored coping with trauma and family.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley
for the eARC.

Thank you to Danielle at Simon & Schuster for sending me an E-ARC of What Hunger in exchange for an honest review.

A raw and traumatic coming-of-age story that follows Veronica Nguyen, a daughter descended from a Vietnamese immigrant family. Our main character harnesses a hunger that will never cease, along with an inner life like a storm. She experiences a chain of events that don’t offer peace, and understanding the control taken over through a desperate hunger is a savoring read.

I developed an attachment to both siblings, even when my heart cramped and my tears exploded. I loathed the parents, but Catherine Dang wrote the parents as real human characters, where even as a reader, we don’t acknowledge their whole lives. And despite Veronica’s ultimate hunger and threats, she remains both bloodcurdling and inspiring.

There is no forbearance when grasping Veronica’s setting and character development. Veronica engages with the story through religion, loss, friendships, high school, family, and selective neighbors. This maturation blossoms after an inevitable incident, and our Vietnamese family begins to lack compassion. This is how the book unravels, which left me cradling at night.

A story so raw, I was left curious how this hunger wants the most crimson meat at any stake. Every chapter, every paragraph, every sentence kept me reading because in any unsettling story we want to hope, as a reader, that our characters can meet stability. That will always drive my reading, and this book proved that with a compromising ending. My only advice—don’t read on an empty stomach.

I LOVED this book. I love the slow creeping of female rage, and the careful consideration of generational trauma and what bonds us to each other. I really enjoyed seeing some imperfect victims, which yes, can be frustrating but is more true to life than the alternative. I will absolutely be recommending What Hunger.

This one is for my cannibalism as a metaphor for feminine rage girlies. Wow, I will start off with I loved everything about this book. This story follows Ronny, a tween of Vietnamese immigrant parents. She also has a big brother named Tommy, who excels in everything he does, and is about to head off to college and make his parents proud. When tragedy strikes not just once but twice for Ronny, how far will her hunger for for vengeance and revenge go? This story follows the topics death, grief, violence, teenage rage, cannibalism, and revenge. I mean count me in. Vietnamese culture plays a huge role in this book and I enjoyed learning more about it. Thank you always Simon and Schuster for the earc

What Hunger by Catherine Dang is the kind of novel that gets under your skin in a quiet, aching way. I went into it expecting a crime story—and while it delivers on the suspense—it’s really a deeply personal exploration of pain, identity, and what it means to live in the aftermath of being shattered.

The main character felt so raw and real to me. She’s not easy to pin down—sharp, guarded, hurting—but that complexity made her feel honest. This is a story about hunger in so many forms: for justice, for belonging, for understanding, for something solid to hold onto when everything else has been taken. Dang doesn’t shy away from the ugliness of that hunger or the way it can twist you, but she also writes with empathy. You never feel like you're being pushed to judge—just to see.

What struck me the most was the emotional tension. The pacing isn’t frantic, but there’s a constant undercurrent of unease, like something just out of sight is pulling all the strings. The story unfolds in layers—memories, discoveries, mistakes—and each one adds more depth, more weight.

It’s also a story about women—the things they survive, the ways they're silenced, and the power in reclaiming your own narrative. There were moments that made me pause, not because they were shocking, but because they were true. Painfully, quietly true.

By the end, I felt like I had just stepped out of someone else’s skin, carrying their grief and anger with me. This book doesn’t tie everything up neatly, and I appreciated that. It lingers, and it’s meant to.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for a review! This was my first ARC, and I wasn't sure what to expect when reading this book, but I loved it.

What Hunger is a beautifully compelling story about coming-of-age, violent cravings, girlhood, family, generational trauma, and Vietnamese heritage. It was engaging from cover to cover. Ronny was an easy character to fall into step with, and I was immediately invested in her life and her family. Dang does a wonderful job of writing this book from a teenage POV while keeping the text mature and engaging. Ronny's journey paints a vivid picture of how emotions like rage, grief, hunger, and vengeance can be so big that they quite literally eat at you.

This book left me thoroughly satiated, and I can't wait to read more by Catherine Dang.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for my ARC!
Dang’s writing is absolutely ripe with the chaos of growing up, add multiple tragedies on top of that and you can turn anyone into a monster. Are you a monster if it’s for survival though? Ronny’s life is torn up violently in different ways. My heart ached for her. I found I couldn’t relate to the rebellion, mostly because I had an awful case of oldest child syndrome growing up, but I could absolutely relate to her frustration and rage towards her situation. Nothing is fair for her and it’s very much a reflection of life. We don’t know who people are, truly. What parts are they hiding and what drives behaviors? This short novel is brimming with highly charged emotion and I think it serves that raw energy well.

this is going to be a cult-classic! for fans of the eyes are the best part, jennifers body, and overall enjoyers of womens wrongs - you'll absolutely EAT this novel up, literally. it has all the gory crazed behavior that i love to read about intertwined with the complexity of a girl's coming of age in the wake of tragedy and heartbreak. i loved all the references to food. to identity and generational trauma and girlhood and family. i have endless praise for this novel and cannot wait for it to debut!!

This book is a captivating and immersive read from start to finish. The writing is engaging, the pacing well-balanced, and the characters are richly developed with relatable emotions and motivations. The story unfolds in a way that keeps the reader hooked, offering just the right mix of tension, heart, and thought-provoking themes. Whether you're looking for an emotional journey, a thrilling plot, or simply beautiful prose, this book delivers. It's a standout example of great storytelling and leaves a lasting impression long after the final page.

This is a dark story of a young girl just trying to survive a family tragedy and entering high-school. Her immediate family is struggling as well.

The tempo of the story kept me engaged. While I had a hard time connecting with the main character, I still felt that the writing put a lot of emotion into the character.

A good, solid story.

#NetGalley #WhatHunger