Food of the Gods

Gods & Monsters #3

by Cassandra Khaw

By day, Rupert Wong - sorcerer, chef, former triad - prepares delicious meals of human flesh for a dynasty of ghouls in Kuala Lumpur; by night, he’s an administrator for the Ten Chinese Hells. It’s a living, of sorts.

When the Dragon of the South demands that Rupert investigate the murders of his daughter and her mortal husband, Rupert is caught in a war between gods that’s as bewildering as it is bloody.

If he’s going to survive, he’ll need to stay sharp, stay lucky, and always read the fine print…

This volume collects the novellas Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef and Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Urban Fantasy, Fiction, Mythology, Mystery, Audiobook

238 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2017

About the author

Cassandra Khaw is an award-winning game writer.
Their recent novella Nothing but Blackened Teeth was a British
Fantasy, World Fantasy, Shirley Jackson, and Bram Stoker
Award finalist. Their debut collection Breakable Things is now
out.

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rupert Wong was destined to damnation until he cut a deal with the gods of the Chinese underworld to work some of his bad karma off. Doubling as a cannibal chef and part time pencil pusher, doing who knows what well not him, he has his hands full. Too bad he's so good at his job because now a Dragon King is enlisting his help and he can't refuse because it is the only way his ghost girlfriend Minah can be granted a chance at reincarnation. Unknowingly though Rupert gets caught up in a scheme to start a war between the Chinese and Greek Pantheons and in the second novella he ends up being shipped out to London to the Greek gods as a chef on behalf of his underworld boss. The mixing of multiple mythologies can get a little iffy at times but I mostly enjoyed it. I know a lot of people didn't find it structured enough but I thought it was fine, especially considering it's two novellas. I enjoyed the first one much more than the second, probably because I don't have much knowledge or familiarity with Chinese mythology so it was more interesting to read about that. Also the wit was really great, I love clever writing and kind of enjoyed the asides that Rupert makes through out the book. I personally didn't have that hard of a time getting through the mythology stuff I didn't know, I just used context clues or waited for it to be cleared up. All in all I enjoyed it, yes the plot wasn't clearly mapped out and the mythology stuff at times may not have meshed as smoothly as it could have but the writing was good and the characters amused me, especially Rupert.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh lordy. When it comes to genre mashing, I'm usually first in line and chortling with glee when it comes to the wild and the wacky. Coming into this one relatively free of any expectations other than knowing it was a group read with some friends, I blanked my mind and began it.

First impressions: Oh! Chinese gods, the underworld, a damned chef and the problem of keeping the ghouls happy with their meals. Oh! Godfather. Oh! This is GORY. Oh! Rupert has one hell of a snark going on and even if I don't particularly like him or what he does, he's funny as hell.

Second impressions, coinciding with the second novella (two of which make up a single novel): I'm really getting into this. Life on the line for the stunt he pulled, he's sent to work for the enemy, I.E., the Greek Gods. As a Chef. And they're all a real nasty piece of work. Survival novel, mystery, and twisty, twisty machinations including new gods, old gods, and a really fun Outsider Cthuhlu god later... CHAOS, BLOOD, and so much gory death. :)

The second one was even better than the first, but I'll put it this way: 3 star, 5 star. This damned chef has really grown on me. Like undead tattoo fairies. Or an immortal youtube cat begging for scraps. :)

So, a word of warning: You must be comfortable with graphic, graphic gore. :) The rest is a very humorous comedy of errors featuring a cannibal chef who keeps getting into trouble with all the wrong gods. It's very reminiscent of some classic mystery/comedies with a huge American Gods twist.

:)

Me, I LOVE bizarro fiction and Khaw's writing skill is tops. No complaints there. Quite funny, great turns of phrase, and always snappy. She just pushes the boundaries as far as she likes with the gore, and I really appreciate that. :)

Now, I need to go take a shower.

[Eilonwy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rupert Wong, former bad dude, is paying his karmic debts. He's a chef to ghouls, coming up with the most delicious ways to prepare human flesh (mostly hapless European tourists to Kuala Lumpur: "Scottish rump roast is exactly what you're imagining"). He's also a clerk/union agent/gofer for the Ten Chinese Hells. In his spare time, he relaxes with his girlfriend Minah, a langsuir. Nope, his life is nothing like normal.

And neither is this book. Wow, it is utterly gruesome and slightly disgusting. But at the same time, it's incredibly wryly funny, and highly original. It consists of two novellas, "Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef," and "Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth," which work fine as a single novel since the action from the first flows directly into the second. They're surprisingly different from each other in some ways, though, and I loved both of them.

"Cannibal Chef" is set in Kuala Lumpur (which I've visited!), and features a combination of Malaysian and Chinese mythology. It's a bit of a detective story, as Ao Qin, Dragon King of the South Seas, wants Rupert to find out why his daughter was murdered. The story is quick-paced and straightforward, and kept me Googling up all sorts of deities and creepy-crawlies. (Not to mention "ang moh," the reader to whom Rupert is addressing the story. It doesn't mean "good buddy.")

In "Ends of the Earth," Rupert gets sent to London to do a temporary gig as a chef for the Greek pantheon (still cooking his usual specialties, though). At first I was a little disappointed with this turn, as London and Greek deities just seem more familiar, plus the story didn't have the obvious direction that the first novella did. But this take on the Greeks is a little different than most, and what appeared to be a meandering and possibly pointless story turned into a double-crossing, backstabbing, plot-twisting bloodbath that had my head spinning and my fingers flipping the pages as fast as possible.

I'm slightly embarrassed to have enjoyed these stories as much as I did. I'm really a very sweet person who never even squashes bugs! And I don't particularly enjoy mob movies, which these are definitely inspired by. But Rupert's take on the world and his own predicament, his observations, the varying and amazing (and terrifying) other characters around him, and the author's creativity kept me riveted, laughing out loud and applauding every unexpected turn.

I sure hope Cassandra Khaw writes some more Rupert Wong stories, because even though I'm somewhat relieved not to be visualizing so many grisly situations and so much gore anymore, I'm also missing this unique and twisted world.

-----------------------------------------------

This was just as enjoyable as a reread. Maybe more, because I was able to savor every word properly this time.

[✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans)]

💀 DNF at 21%.

No rating because how the stinking fish am I supposed to rate a book that isn't bad and that I know I should have loved but didn't?! Beats nefarious little me and stuff.

The Slowpoke Queen Herself In Person 💕lurved💕 this book so much she boldly recommended to me (what a brave, fearless little soul she is). My Nefarious Daughter 💕lurves💕 it so much she convinced me to put it at the very top of my tbr (to the utter dismay and absolute consternation of the many YA Historical Paranormal Romances that were up next on my reading schedule). My Most Beloved Jojo's Beloved Daddy waxes bloody shrimping poetic about it. My Most Beloved Jojo's Beloved Daddy Himself In Person!!

Either these (mostly almost lovely) people all read the book wrong I didn't read the book right, or got the Korean version by mistake. And read it back to front. And upside down. I mean, it took me two days ages to go through the first eight chapters. And all the while I felt kinda sorta like...



My two ever-decaying, ruthlessly overworked grey cells are probably and most possibly to blame for this sad state of affairs. Shame on them and stuff.

➽ And the moral of this crappy non-review is :



You're welcome.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rupert Wong wears many hats. His day job is as a gourmet chef preparing food for a family of rich ghouls, mainly out of human meat. The remainder of his time is spent as the Chinese Hells' seneschal in Kuala Lumpur. His family life revolves around his girlfriend who's a flesh-eating spirit with a demon baby.

In the first novella of this volume Rupert gets a visit from Ao Qin, the Dragon King of the South Sea with a promise of riches in return for an impossible job. Ao Qin's little task soon sees Rupert stuck in a battle between the Greek and Chinese pantheons with the local Malay supernatural getting involved as well.

In the second novella Rupert has to get out of town and heads off to London where he gets heavily involved with the other side of the conflict from the first novella.

I'll get this out of the way first: this book is one of the goriest, splatter-filled and horrifying pieces of fiction I have ever read, made all the worse by Cassandra's beautiful writing, which really only serves to make the material that much more visceral. That's all on top of a plot full of humorous situations and setup and dark witty dialogue. It's overall an extremely disturbing experience to read, a strong example of which being how appetizing Rupert's culinary creations sound, even with the ingredients horrifyingly front and center.

Ultimately this book is Not For Me. I'm not entirely sure who the audience for it actually is, and I'm not sure if want to know them if they exist ... A very unusual experience.

[Alia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tricky book hahaha

[Lata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between the violence and gore, and Rupert Wong’s flippancy and selfishness, I wasn’t sure if I could keep reading after the first few chapters. But Cassandra Khaw can write, and past the pus and viscera were some beautiful word choices. And Rupert’s commentary on various situations was funny, at times. Though I felt kind of wrung out by all the violence in these two stories, I want to check out book one of her Persons Non Grata series eventually.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

As other reviewers have said - this is not a book, it's two; and they're both fantastic.

Cassandra Khaw's writing is always exceptional, and there's no change here. This is beautifully written and utterly horrifying - often cringe-inducing, and only early Stephen King has ever made me actually squirm with his descriptions of physical pain before. But chalk this one up, because such evocative writing is sometimes used to really make the reader wish that the author was, perhaps, just slightly less good at her job.

These stories are written with a depth of knowledge that's astounding, and I found myself frequently googling either the Mandarin phrases or the deities referenced. If you're familiar at all with the Sins du Jour series you'll find something to like here, though this takes an entirely more horror-centric approach. That similar thread of humour and knowledge lifts it from the horror-porn that it might have turned into in the hands of someone less skilled, but it is definitely worth the warning for the squeamish.

[DrCalvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is actually two short stories hanging together, and they're messy, sprawly, bizarre and gore-filled ickfests - but quite fun! It's not a perfect book, with constant the smart quips and crazy similes sometimes feeling like they overloade the narrative, but at many other times, they actually do make me snigger.
It's also a very bloody, messy book that feasts in entrails, blood, violence and viscera. The first half was originally published as "Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef" and this is a lot messier than any version of Hannibal Lecter (although, to be fair, unless he's forced to taste to judge the spicyness, Rupert doesn't eat his preparation himself). If anything like that is likely to squick you, this isn't the right sort of book.

So what's it about then? Rupert Wong is an ex-mobster with enough carmic debt to earn him half an eternity in Hell, and to try and avoid that, he's taken up employment with both the Malaysian underworld and a bunch of ghouls with pretensions of class when it comes to their feeding. He does odd jobs for the first, and cooks for the second. Everything goes to hell when a Dragon God forces him to investigate a murder and the proof all points toward intra-pantheon war.

The good points are that the story jumps ahead quickly, there's loads of fascinating, if sometimes repulsive, mythology crammed into the pages and Rupert deals with his increasing workload and bashed-up body in a offhand, amusing way that reminds me of both John Constantine and Harry Dresden, without feeling imitative of either. The downside is that we have a lot of dropped plot threads from the first half of the book, and that the loop of setup-griveous bodily harm-unconsciousness gets a bit samey after the fifth or so time it happens. The second half/second book in a sense (originally published as Rupert Wong and the ends of the Earth) actually becomes hard to follow due to the man interruptions in the narrator's consciousness and, though I enjoyed the twist at the end, the Greek pantheon and the new characters we meet feel less engaging and more nihilistic than earlier which I'm not sure fits with the wisecracking and speedy story. A little more fleshing out of things and a slightly less breakneck speed would have improved this half of the book. There's also a (un)dead girlfriend who I really felt was a bit of a cliche in character tropes - angelical, regretful, and not doing much of anything in the story except cause manpain.

But, if you want to read about ghostly fetuses unionizing, a literal shitload of human-based cooking with some surprisingly tasty descriptions, and a "all mythology into one pot, stir well"-setting with for once an Asian instead of American/European point of view, Food of the Gods is the right book for you.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last year I first read Cassandra Khaw’s work and was absolutely astounded by the quality of her writing. It seems she can turn her hand to anything, whether it is the intensity of Breathe, the dexterity of Speak or the weirdness of Hammers on Bone. She has so far not got anywhere near as much attention as she deserves, so hopefully this fabulous book will help change that.

In the Rupert Wong stories she creates a wonderfully strange world that we are thrown into head-first. Landing straight on the first page with interlinked discussions of unionisation and cannibalism whilst soon learning how HIV is the ‘It’ flavour. You quickly realise this is a reading experience not quite like any other.

This book continues to demonstrate why Cassandra Khaw is one of the most exciting new authors writing in the field of fantasy. If you haven’t already tried her this is a great place to start. If you have then what are you waiting for? Get it now!

Full Review:
http://geeksyndicate.co.uk/reviews/bo...

[Boz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. It had all the elements of a fantasy novel I would enjoy, mixing Constantine with Cthulhu. The writing is, sometimes, quite good. But too often it felt like a lot of very finely crafted sentences strung together without reason, and the greater story made no sense. Why was a chef under the employ of an undead mobster acting as a private investigator to a greater deity? Or being shipped off to spend some time with the Greek Gods for unknown reasons (I still don't understand why)? Why was he married to a zombie?

Characters are never really fleshed out to a point where you grow attached to them. The lead, Rupert Wong, describes himself as having been hired muscle in the past, but is now a full-time chef. He cooks as a sort of purgatory, trying to balance the scales so he isn't damned for eternity. He is supposed to be sarcastic and witty, but it comes across as forced. We never catch a glimpse of any greater character depth. Instead he comes off as a shallow, selfish jerk, which doesn't make him very interesting, nor does it make me identify with him.

The characters around him are equally cardboard: Everyone feels superior to Wong; his employer, the Dragon King, the Greek Gods, the lesser demons, and other entities. They all see Wong as beneath them and - shocker! - still hire him out or fall to his surprises. These surprises amount to very little outside his tattoos, which are the embodiment of a bunch of demons. But their power and scope are never explained, so whenever he gets into trouble he just pops a tattoo and - deus ex machina - he's okay.

None of this is all that bad, but the pacing is so disjointed, which is unusual for a linear storyline told from a single perspective. There were times I would reread paragraphs just to make sure I hadn't missed a segue. But no, I hadn't missed anything. Sometimes it's the assumption that we know some of the words used, like "ang moh," which I had to look up. Not a big deal, but certain scenes would displace the characters, such as an early chase scene between our protagonist and a competitor, where they end up in a marketplace, but it's not clear how they transitioned from where they had been.

I finished the book, but the pacing was uneven enough that it was challenging. Khaw has tremendous imagination, and I think if she slows down and refines her pacing, she will craft some truly amazing novels.

[Heidi Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This version is a combo-model, consisting of entries 1 and 2 in the Rupert Wong series: Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef, and Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth. They form something of an over-arching tale, so I might as well rave about them together.

Rupert Wong is no hero; in fact when we meet him, he's a human working off certain damnation one meal at a time, preparing gourmet repasts of his fellow-man for snooty ghouls as part of a deal he's struck with the Ten Chinese Hells. Who sometimes contract him out.

If I have to say any more to get your attention, you're in the wrong place. I'm not going to rehash an (exceedingly) twisty plot, because that would spoil it. The short version: as a result of a deal to save his own skin (and possibly the soul of his hungry-ghost beloved), the resourceful, sassy cannibal chef careens through increasingly complex favors and debts to scheming gods and monsters, pantheons spanning the universe -- Malay to R'lyeh. Khaw's multiplicity of gods are vivid and nuanced, craftily reflecting and subverting their assigned roles in the universe of myth.

Each book has a discrete arc, but one informs the next and the full story really unfolds over both parts. Rupert's quasi-redemptive, (anti)hero's journey through pretty much every available kind of hell is utterly charming . . . in an amoral, hilarious, profane, and disgusting way. (Think of a hellscape American Gods with a goofy Christopher Moore vibe, angry dragons, and a surplus of entrails and tentacles.)

Gotta say, Cassandra Khaw is something of a wonder. Her manic energy, black humor, gorgeously arcane vocabulary, deep command of mythology (multicultural, ancient, modern, and newly imagined), and her sheer, wicked inventiveness are the complete package for lovers of the weird and dark. 4 stars for book 1, upgraded to 5 for the 2-part arc overall. Damn.

[JC]

Malaysian horror that J. Moufawad-Paul spoke highly of. That’s the main reason I heard about this book and chose to read it. I feel like you have to be a nerd to enjoy this. A lot was over my head. There were a lot of references to Greek and Chinese mythology. It is a really funny book though, and equally gross and disturbing. I wish I could say I read it during the weeks leading up to Halloween, but I finished it months ago. I just have an enormous backlog of books I want to write reviews for. If you wanna get a feel for what this book is like while visiting Singapore, you might check out Haw Par Villa (featuring the "Ten Courts of Hell"). It’s in this Grimes music video lmao.

I’ll put the opening lines from Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 here, for a little taste of what this book is like (they're a little gross and disturbing so I’ve marked the excerpts as spoilers):

Chapter One: “"YOU CAN'T UNIONISE. If you unionise, you'll-" I feel jaw muscles tighten from the impending awkwardness. "You'll make demonic-undead-baby-ness look viable."
I slump. The words hang like the absence of applause at the end of an ill-considered comedy routine.”

Chapter Two: “LET'S TAKE IT a step back, ang moh. Let's talk about what I do in the evenings. You already know I cut up tourists to make splendiferous banquets for ravenous abominations in custom-fitted Armani suits.”

[Adam Heine · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if the American Gods mythos was reimagined by a foody with a gift for Lovecraftian horror and Gene Wolfe-style allusive prose?

This. This is what would happen.

And it's glorious.

[Owlphabetical · Rating 4 out of 5]

You could summarise this book as a recipe (and I can't imagine I'm the first to think of that): one part recipe book, one part mythology, one part Harry Dresden, one part Lovecraft. But like any good dish, it ends up being completely a thing of its own.

Rupert is an engaging character, flawed as he is, and you're on his side from the start. His world is complex, layered, and real - there's a wonderful sense of place, and you feel like you could step through the pages of the book to join him. Although, given the situations he finds himself in, you might not want to.

This is a couple of novellas, really, and both stories are contained enough that they could be read alone. The second opens up the world a lot, and left me ready for a second helping

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rupert Wong, cannibal chef and fixer for hire. Working in the food industry can literally be hell, with a fillip of outer cosmic horror. A very snarky and violent trip into the bowels of supernatural cooking and warring gods. An original and amusing read that combines two earlier works.

[Zrinka Sinkovic Lavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre, violent, super gory mish-mash of different genres, Asian & European mythologies and the new deities, the living, the ghouls and the tattoos (omg the tattoos) with a healthy sprinkle of snarky dialogue. Loved it!

[Maaike van Stratum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulp met een hoofdletter P. Niet voor zwakke magen, de ingewanden vliegen je om om de oren. Maar wel heel entertainend.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book that I've read by Cassandra Khaw - the first being Hammers On Bone - and there are a few similarities, although the protagonist is different. Both draw on Lovecraft without reproducing the racism which totally underpins the original. And both, curiously, prominently feature Croydon. It's sort of flattering in a way, and I think the idea of Croydon has a lot of potential for this sort of story, although both books have a few geographic discrepancies which could become grating if you let them. It's probably best not to get too hung up about realism in a book about a possessed chef to a family of ghouls.

The opening stretch of this book, however, is set in Kuala Lumpur. It probably doesn't need to be mentioned that it's quite refreshing to have a cosmic horror set in southeast Asia and written by someone from south-east Asia, drawing on Malaysian and Chinese mythology as well as Greek and American. But it is, and Khaw does very well to resist the orientalism which such an effort might imply. Khaw seems deeply aware of her difficult position - writing a novel *about* southeast Asia, *by* someone from southeast Asia BUT ultimately *for* readers who are from elsewhere. The book constantly struggles against this, making clear that Kuala Lumpur is a modern, global city and not some sort of hitherto undiscovered backwater - replete with Taylor Swift on the radio. The book is unforgiving - there is, thankfully, no quaint glossary (as if it was a guidebook rather than a horror story) and the reader is constantly berated for their gaze, challenged to think differently. At times I thought the pace slowed or the plot grew muddled, and perhaps this book (which is, really, a collection of previously published stories) lacks the sleek composition of Hammers On Bone. That absolutely shouldn't stop anyone from reading this book - it's a really good read and the intentions are excellent, although you should be warned that the kitchen scenes will leave you queasy.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

CW: [graphic:] blood, gore, body horror, cannibalism, violence, death, murder, torture, [moderate:] child death, self-harm, [minor:] references to miscarriage

By around page 100, I realized I had no clue what the plot of this series was.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wound up really enjoying this. It's a fast paced supernatural mystery with a wisecracking cannibal chef. What's not to enjoy?

[Colin Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rupert Wong may have been human once but mixing with Gods and demons and feeding their less than savoury appetites has made him something more…or less. It is a quirky journey through Southeast Asian and Western mythologies made real and set initially in a modern-day Kuala Lumpur.

The first part, Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef, is not always an easy read unless you are familiar with the region and its mythology, as terms are frequently not explained. In addition, the author has Rupert make asides to a ‘friend’ as though the book is being related as a story to another, but this is not done consistently and adds little to the flow or clarity. As a device it could have been better used to explain to the ‘foreigner’ what is going on. This improves in the second part, Rupert Wong and the Ends of the Earth, where he demonstrates more fully his abilities as chef with relocation to the UK. Parts two and three, Meat, Bone, Tea, are really one larger story, which draw the numerous threads together to a hodgepodge of an ending. Unsurprisingly there is a sequel hook.

Overall it is an easy read with good pace and varied, if gory, plot that carries Rupert on a rollercoaster ride through unpleasant things he can barely keep his head above. He is not a ‘good’ man, but he tries his best.

[Lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

TW for gore, violence, cannibalism, and general hopelessness. It was very interesting, but it wasn't fun.

[Brittney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half > the second half. What exactly was the point of sending this unique story from Malaysia to over-done fictional London?

[Morgan Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that if this was ever made into a t.v series, the series would be better than the book. I'd love to see what television does with Rupert :-)

[Duane Gosser · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story but was bewildered by number of mythological creature names and Ruperts vocabulary so much that I had phone in hand to look up creatures and words. I thought I new some Asian mythology but definitely no enough to keep up with this story. Will admit that this took the shine off the book for me but will not keep me from trying additional books by C. Khaw.

[Stuart · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't finish this book. The premise sounded interesting, even humorous, but, for me, the execution just did not work. Originally published as two separate books, this version joins them together as the adventures of the Cannibal Chef Rupert Wong in Kuala Lumpur and then in London. He cooks humans for the gods; initially the Chinese gods of the orient, then the Greek gods who for some reason are now domiciled in London. I just couldn't get into the book..... I have tried to analyse why exactly, and I'm not sure. Certainly the various pantheons of gods were confusing, but I've coped with unknown gods before. Perhaps it was many and wondrous supernatural beings that populated the pages? Perhaps it was the unrelieved gore? Perhaps it was the over-the-top writing style? Perhaps it was the failed attempts at humor? Perhaps it was all of the above? Anyway, the work didn't work for me.

[Don Priest · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at about 50%. It's clear the author is attempting to write a protagonist in the vein of Harry Dresden and other urban fantasy heroes, and her efforts fall flat. Rupert Wong is not terribly interesting, or likeable, or funny. He's exactly what he is: a murderer working for monsters, a decent guy only in comparison. I can't bring myself to care about his struggles, or the world he inhabits. He deserves whatever terrible fate befalls him, and I'm quitting now so I can imagine the pitchforks.

Also, I swear to God, if I ever hear, or even read, 'ang moh' again, I'll lose my damn mind.

[Jerry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had some fun moments, particularly in the beginning. However, the book quickly lost its focus. I still don't understand all of the players or their motivations. This was a story that needed to be a lot longer (so that the author could adequately explain everything that was going on), or a lot simpler (so that it could fit into the ~250 pages with which she decided to work).

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cannibal chef who has done a deal with the Lord of Hell to serve Ghouls food is suddenly embroiled in two mysteries involving SE Asian and Greek Gods. In turns grisly, funny, heartwarming and satirical - one of the most fun reads I’ve read in ages but some clever observational humour in it too.