Feast While You Can

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!!

oh. my. god. this delicious book. I do not have the correct words to actually explain how i felt about this book outside of READ IT READ IT READ IT, its soooo fucking good my god. 5/5 stars

In a word: DELICIOUS.

But okay, more words. Set blessedly in the 90s without being all period piece about it, Feast While You Can populates a tiny Italian countryside town called Cadenze with siblings Angelina and Patrick Sicco, their sometimes-helpful and sometimes-notsomuch extended family, a crew of colorful locals, and a town square featuring a fountain with a giant hand sculpture in the middle that just sounds cool as hell. The story begins when Jagvi, currently a hot single butch lesbian (now in your area) and formerly Patrick's girlfriend (yikes!), returns to town just in time for a party in a cave from whence Angelina emerges unsettled by Jagvi's reappearance and also accompanied by the cave's storied malevolent entity (now in your head) (also yikes!).

It's a take on possession horror that'll have you looking with disdain on every previous attempt that cluttered up the point with Catholicism when clearly what you should REALLY dread is: what if your body was taken over by something simultaneously truly evil, a bitch, and also a troll? What's more terrifying than being under the control of an entity that's fucking your entire life up while giggling about it to your face? What we forget when watching the flailing bodies and banana peel slips of slapstick comedy is that actually all that falling ends in bruises, contusions, and broken bones. (Seriously, one particular scene on a mountainside is going to haunt me.)

But by far the sweetest, stickiest part of this book is the LESBIANISM of it all, as rich and indulgent as every thick ribbon of caramel in a pint of expensive ice cream. I love yearning as much as the next big ol' queer, and will contentedly pine alongside a main character until I want to scream, but this book really revels in the sheer inescapable HORNINESS of desperately wanting someone you don't think you can have. Feast While You Can is about two women who have absolutely had sex with other people before this but ohhhh my god, every dripping moment of want will have you yourself feeling like you sure haven't, and you have to, oh my god, it's giving gay sex propaganda, it's giving oh right that's what it felt like to be a virgin, it will have you tense as hell when you're not squirming and you will emerge from it all thinking about the significant weight of a hand on the back of your neck. And thinking about it. And thinking about it.

The modern parlance would have me deem it spicy, but that is a vast understatement. It's a five hour marathon of Hot Ones, and you, periodically, will become one of the celebrities that just starts crying. I can't think about the first sex scene too much because I just start brooding about whether or not I should get on Tinder. (Should I? God, women are SO good.)

And it's all backlit by lives that feel incredibly real, full of deeply complicated relationships with friends and family, jobs that are alternately important and meaningful or just for a paycheck (fair), the relatable desire to just like go to the local bar and throw back a few, and the genuine and frightening feeling of being in love with somebody who wants different things than you do in an uncompromisable way. It tackles the difficulty of growing up as women of color surrounded by a bunch of small town racists, and the willingness to make multiple handshake deals with the devil to survive it vs. doing what you need to do to GTFO, without shying away from the conflict this causes between the two people going through it.

The writing is evocative, vivid, and lyrical, and often incredibly fucking funny. (One exchange about strap-ons had me laughing out loud while also making me rethink heterosexual relationships entirely. If you're a fellow bisexual watch out, this book might have legally ticked me up one notch on the Kinsey Scale.) I was on tenterhooks leading up to the end, with absolutely no idea how they were going to resolve this enormous pickle of a lesbian horror show (affectionate), and when I say it stuck the landing like MY GOD. Perfect. Exquisite. Chef's kiss. 10/10. Frankly, consume me daddy.

This novel is a love letter to hunger. And baby, it will feed you soooo good.

My thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC, and to Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta for this absolute banger.

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.

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.

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.

I really enjoyed this one - Fleshed out characters and good development, a well paced plot, and a possessive monster who is also a bit of a dick. Definitely recommended.