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Woman, Eating
A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst humans with her incessant hunger in this stunning debut novel from a writer-to-watch.
Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London--where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.
Then there are the humans--the other artists at the studio space, the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men that follow her after dark, and Ben, a boyish, goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them. In her windowless studio, where she paints and studies the work of other artists, binge-watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos of people eating food on YouTube and Instagram, Lydia considers her place in the world. She has many of the things humans wish for--perpetual youth, near-invulnerability, immortality--but, she is miserable; she is lonely; and she is hungry--always hungry.
As Lydia develops as a woman and an artist, she will learn that she must reconcile the conflicts within her--between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat.
Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can't eat any of these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London--where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.
Then there are the humans--the other artists at the studio space, the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men that follow her after dark, and Ben, a boyish, goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them. In her windowless studio, where she paints and studies the work of other artists, binge-watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos of people eating food on YouTube and Instagram, Lydia considers her place in the world. She has many of the things humans wish for--perpetual youth, near-invulnerability, immortality--but, she is miserable; she is lonely; and she is hungry--always hungry.
As Lydia develops as a woman and an artist, she will learn that she must reconcile the conflicts within her--between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published March 24, 2022
894 people are currently reading
71781 people want to read
About the author
Claire Kohda
4 books315 followersClaire Kohda is an English writer and musician. She reviews books for publications including The Guardian and The TLS. As a violinist, she has played with Jessie Ware, RY X, Pete Tong, the London Contemporary Orchestra and The English Chamber Orchestra, amongst others, and on various film soundtracks.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,936 reviews
May 16, 2022
A sparsely written novel within the Sad Woman literary genre with a vampire twist. Unfortunately too sparse and distant for my tastes; I wish it had a stronger focus on the character’s mixed-race identity or relationship with her mother so that the narrative could be more compelling.
November 10, 2022
Didn’t eat enough men :(((
October 12, 2023
girl dinner
May 30, 2022
i really think this is gonna be the type of book that a lot of people do not like so naturally i loved it. it's very much character driven, all vibes, no plot. but i loved being in the mind of a vampire trying to survive on her own for the first time and struggling with what is clearly an eating disorder. I thought vampires have been so over done there aren't original stories anymore but this was a very fascinating way to exploring being a vampire in a new and fresh way
April 20, 2022
What I was promised: a young vampire artist hungry for blood and life, while struggling with her identity and immortality
What I got: an underwhelming extended metaphor with a romantic subplot
I think the story of the protagonist’s self-loathing vampire mother and human father would have made for a more interesting novel than the one we got.
Verdict: unsatisfying.
I’m giving it an extra star because it’s a debut.
What I got: an underwhelming extended metaphor with a romantic subplot
I think the story of the protagonist’s self-loathing vampire mother and human father would have made for a more interesting novel than the one we got.
Verdict: unsatisfying.
I’m giving it an extra star because it’s a debut.
July 25, 2022
2/5 ✨
It took her forever to eat.
It took her forever to eat.
May 11, 2022
It is well written and has such rich dark academia vibes. So much so that I felt excluded from the narrative. The talk of ✨art✨ is beyond me. I don’t understand or want to understand the artistic discussions being had in this book.
I want blood sucking. I want SOMETHING paranormal but instead I'm getting a vampire reading other people's grocery lists and longing to be human. While I understand that, the book is 230 pages. We didn't need 220 of them to be the internal monologue of a 'literary sad girl'.
This is a character study and I wish I had known that going in because it would have leveled my expectations. But, as it is, I was bored.
I want blood sucking. I want SOMETHING paranormal but instead I'm getting a vampire reading other people's grocery lists and longing to be human. While I understand that, the book is 230 pages. We didn't need 220 of them to be the internal monologue of a 'literary sad girl'.
This is a character study and I wish I had known that going in because it would have leveled my expectations. But, as it is, I was bored.
April 27, 2024
what if the Woman in Her Turbulent 20s™ was a vampire… with mommy issues… a yearner… insatiable… and LACTOSE INTOLERANT.
March 28, 2022
Now that was a unique vampire story if ever I read one! 🧛♀️
Lydia is a 23 year old art school graduate whose mother has recently been put in a nursing home. This is really her first time venturing out into the world without her mother by her side guiding her way. You see, Lydia isn't like you or I, she is a vampire. Her father was Japanese and what she considers to be her human side but her mother is a vampire that turned her when she was just a baby. Her mother was full of self loathing and refers to them as demons that deserve nothing more than pigs blood, the filthiest of all animals. They were always able to procure pigs blood by the barrel from a local butcher that asked no questions but now that Lydia is on her own she is finding it more and more difficult to satisfy her hunger and with no pigs blood in sight she will need to get creative.
(If you're like me you'll be thinking a vampire in a nursing home? What in the heck?!?! I assure you an answer is provided.)
Lydia rents a studio space with other artists and she dreams of living amongst them, fully human. After attending a dinner party where people laugh and joke and revel in each others company she can't believe all she has missed out on and she is wondering if she can starve the demon out. She is desperate to be like them until she can no longer deny who and what she actually is.
I truly loved Lydia as a character, vampire teeth and all. While her situation is unique her problems are those of any young woman trying to figure out her path in life. She mostly wants to be liked and loved by those around her. There is a constant nagging feeling of being different and less worthy of her peers and having obstacles that you can't really open up to friends about puts her in a precarious position. Speaking of friends, it's nearly impossible to have them when you have eternal life. When you stay the same and those around you fall in love, have children, and grow old and you are you, always and forever, for good or for bad. Not to mention her insatiable appetite and how she desperately wants to eat all of the food those around her are eating, especially that of Japanese food, which she feels would connect her with her human father.
If your looking for thrills, chills, suspense, horror, blood, guts and gore then move along as you will not find any of that here. This is a character study of an interesting and intriguing young woman, a coming of age, or at least, coming of womanhood, narrated by a fascinating voice I will not soon forget. 4 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for my complimentary copy.
Lydia is a 23 year old art school graduate whose mother has recently been put in a nursing home. This is really her first time venturing out into the world without her mother by her side guiding her way. You see, Lydia isn't like you or I, she is a vampire. Her father was Japanese and what she considers to be her human side but her mother is a vampire that turned her when she was just a baby. Her mother was full of self loathing and refers to them as demons that deserve nothing more than pigs blood, the filthiest of all animals. They were always able to procure pigs blood by the barrel from a local butcher that asked no questions but now that Lydia is on her own she is finding it more and more difficult to satisfy her hunger and with no pigs blood in sight she will need to get creative.
(If you're like me you'll be thinking a vampire in a nursing home? What in the heck?!?! I assure you an answer is provided.)
Lydia rents a studio space with other artists and she dreams of living amongst them, fully human. After attending a dinner party where people laugh and joke and revel in each others company she can't believe all she has missed out on and she is wondering if she can starve the demon out. She is desperate to be like them until she can no longer deny who and what she actually is.
I truly loved Lydia as a character, vampire teeth and all. While her situation is unique her problems are those of any young woman trying to figure out her path in life. She mostly wants to be liked and loved by those around her. There is a constant nagging feeling of being different and less worthy of her peers and having obstacles that you can't really open up to friends about puts her in a precarious position. Speaking of friends, it's nearly impossible to have them when you have eternal life. When you stay the same and those around you fall in love, have children, and grow old and you are you, always and forever, for good or for bad. Not to mention her insatiable appetite and how she desperately wants to eat all of the food those around her are eating, especially that of Japanese food, which she feels would connect her with her human father.
If your looking for thrills, chills, suspense, horror, blood, guts and gore then move along as you will not find any of that here. This is a character study of an interesting and intriguing young woman, a coming of age, or at least, coming of womanhood, narrated by a fascinating voice I will not soon forget. 4 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for my complimentary copy.
May 26, 2022
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Woman, Eating is a great example of a good concept being let down by a rather lacklustre execution…it lacked bite (ba dum tss).
Woman, Eating is yet another addition to what I have come to think of as the ‘sad, strange, miserable millennial’ subgenre. Kohda however does try to spice things up a bit by bringing into the mix vampirism: Lydia, our narrator, is in fact a vampire.
Lydia is not doing so well. Her mother is a Malaysian/British vampire, her father was a human. Lydia grew up with her mother and knows very little about her father (other than that he was Japanese and a famous artist). Her mother hates what they are and has tried to instil this same self-hatred into Lydia. But now her mother is in a hospice and no longer remembers who and what they are.
Lydia, alone for the first time in her life, moves into a studio space for young artists in London and begins working as an intern at an art gallery. In addition to navigating these new spaces and circumstances, Lydia has her hunger to preoccupy her. For some reason, she can’t find a way to get any pig blood and as the days go by she becomes increasingly hungry. She develops a sort of crush on Ben, a fellow artist in her building, but she isn’t sure whether it's because she’s starved (and wants him as a snack) or whether it’s something more genuine. She can’t seem to bring herself to produce any more art and at the gallery is either mistreated or ignored. Worse still, the director of the gallery, Gideon, is also giving her some serious creepy predatory vibes.
Lydia is fascinated by human food and spends a lot of her time watching mukbangs, reading food recipes, and wondering how different food tastes. She reflects on her nature, if she has any of her father’s humanity or whether her mother is right and they are monsters. Her vampirism, which leads her to be obsessed with and averse towards human food, does read like a metaphor for an eating disorder. And the vampire trope does indeed lend itself to exploring alienation, as well as things such as EDs.
In an interview, Anne Rice described ‘the vampire’ as being ‘outside of life’, thus ‘the greatest metaphor for the outsider in all of us’. And Lydia struggles with her otherness, interrogating her own monstrosity and humanity. Additionally, Lydia is experiencing the fears and doubts that many people in their 20s do: what do you want to do with your life? What kind of job do you want? Where do you want to live? Are the things you want even an option to you? Lydia’s mixed ethnic heritage further exacerbates her sense of being ‘other’. Kohda addresses the kind of stereotypes and assumptions people make about those of whom are of East Asian descent. For example, a fellow artist in her building, and coincidentally Ben’s girlfriend, points out that because she’s Japanese people assume her work is ‘delicate’ (even when it is anything but). I would have actually liked more conversation on art than what we were given but still there are some thoughtful asides on modern art.
Lydia spends most of her narrative in a state of misery. Her self-hatred and hunger occupy her every thought…until she finds something (or something) to eat.
This was a relatable if depressing read. While a lot of other books from this ‘disconnected young women’ literary trend are characterized by a wry sense of humor, Lydia’s narration is devoid of any lightness. Her narration is unrelentingly miserable. This made her interior monologue, which makes up the majority of the novel, a bit of a chore to read through. Her navel-gazing was dreary and I often found myself losing interest in her introspections. The narrative felt oppressive, which in some ways does mirror Lydia’s lonely existence but it also makes her story repetitive. There were only three recognizable side characters, the others being little more than names on a page, and they all felt vague. Lydia’s mother was perhaps the most interesting figure but she mostly appears in flashbacks where she is preaching about their monstrosity and the danger of being discovered. Ben was a generic boy who came across as an only half-formed character (he only said things along the lines of "i don't know.."). The gallery director…I appreciated how the author is able to articulate that specific type of unease (of an older man, possibly your colleague or superior, being ‘off’ towards you) that I am sure many young women (sadly) know. But then the role he plays was somewhat forgettable? He is there, to begin with, and then fades into the background only to appear at the very end.
The storyline lacked focus. It meandered without any clear direction. And this can work if your narrator is engaging or compelling enough but Lydia wasn’t. She was pitiable but pitying a character has never made me feel inclined to ‘read’ on to find out what happens to them.
Still, the author’s prose was fairly solid and certain passages even reminded of Hilary Leichter and Sayaka Murata (very matter of fact yet incredibly peculiar, especially when it comes to the 'body' or bodily functions: “My mum’s brain, which sits in a body just metres away from me now, must contain the memory of eating whole meals, of the feel of her body processing those meals, of tasting different flavours.” ).
The way vampirism operates in this world is not clear-cut and I think that really suited this type of story. I did question whether pig blood would be truly so hard to get ahold of and why Lydia didn't try to get ahold of some other source of food sooner...
This novel did not make for a satisfying meal. I never felt quite sure whether I liked what I was being offered and then once it was over I found that I was still hungry. While I liked certain elements and the central idea, the story, plotline, and characters were different shades of average. More than once I found myself thinking that Lydia's story would have been better suited to a shorter format (as opposed to a full-length novel). Still, even if this novel failed to leave a mark on me I look forward to whatever Kohda writes next.
“I feel like giving up, lying down on this wall and closing my eyes and just doing nothing – not bothering to try to fit into the human world, not bothering to make friends and art, not bothering to source blood and feed myself.”
Woman, Eating is a great example of a good concept being let down by a rather lacklustre execution…it lacked bite (ba dum tss).
“I realised that demon is a subjective term, and the splitting of my identity between devil and god, between impure and pure, was something that my mum did to me rather than the reality of my existence.”
Woman, Eating is yet another addition to what I have come to think of as the ‘sad, strange, miserable millennial’ subgenre. Kohda however does try to spice things up a bit by bringing into the mix vampirism: Lydia, our narrator, is in fact a vampire.
Lydia is not doing so well. Her mother is a Malaysian/British vampire, her father was a human. Lydia grew up with her mother and knows very little about her father (other than that he was Japanese and a famous artist). Her mother hates what they are and has tried to instil this same self-hatred into Lydia. But now her mother is in a hospice and no longer remembers who and what they are.
Lydia, alone for the first time in her life, moves into a studio space for young artists in London and begins working as an intern at an art gallery. In addition to navigating these new spaces and circumstances, Lydia has her hunger to preoccupy her. For some reason, she can’t find a way to get any pig blood and as the days go by she becomes increasingly hungry. She develops a sort of crush on Ben, a fellow artist in her building, but she isn’t sure whether it's because she’s starved (and wants him as a snack) or whether it’s something more genuine. She can’t seem to bring herself to produce any more art and at the gallery is either mistreated or ignored. Worse still, the director of the gallery, Gideon, is also giving her some serious creepy predatory vibes.
Lydia is fascinated by human food and spends a lot of her time watching mukbangs, reading food recipes, and wondering how different food tastes. She reflects on her nature, if she has any of her father’s humanity or whether her mother is right and they are monsters. Her vampirism, which leads her to be obsessed with and averse towards human food, does read like a metaphor for an eating disorder. And the vampire trope does indeed lend itself to exploring alienation, as well as things such as EDs.
In an interview, Anne Rice described ‘the vampire’ as being ‘outside of life’, thus ‘the greatest metaphor for the outsider in all of us’. And Lydia struggles with her otherness, interrogating her own monstrosity and humanity. Additionally, Lydia is experiencing the fears and doubts that many people in their 20s do: what do you want to do with your life? What kind of job do you want? Where do you want to live? Are the things you want even an option to you? Lydia’s mixed ethnic heritage further exacerbates her sense of being ‘other’. Kohda addresses the kind of stereotypes and assumptions people make about those of whom are of East Asian descent. For example, a fellow artist in her building, and coincidentally Ben’s girlfriend, points out that because she’s Japanese people assume her work is ‘delicate’ (even when it is anything but). I would have actually liked more conversation on art than what we were given but still there are some thoughtful asides on modern art.
Lydia spends most of her narrative in a state of misery. Her self-hatred and hunger occupy her every thought…until she finds something (or something) to eat.
This was a relatable if depressing read. While a lot of other books from this ‘disconnected young women’ literary trend are characterized by a wry sense of humor, Lydia’s narration is devoid of any lightness. Her narration is unrelentingly miserable. This made her interior monologue, which makes up the majority of the novel, a bit of a chore to read through. Her navel-gazing was dreary and I often found myself losing interest in her introspections. The narrative felt oppressive, which in some ways does mirror Lydia’s lonely existence but it also makes her story repetitive. There were only three recognizable side characters, the others being little more than names on a page, and they all felt vague. Lydia’s mother was perhaps the most interesting figure but she mostly appears in flashbacks where she is preaching about their monstrosity and the danger of being discovered. Ben was a generic boy who came across as an only half-formed character (he only said things along the lines of "i don't know.."). The gallery director…I appreciated how the author is able to articulate that specific type of unease (of an older man, possibly your colleague or superior, being ‘off’ towards you) that I am sure many young women (sadly) know. But then the role he plays was somewhat forgettable? He is there, to begin with, and then fades into the background only to appear at the very end.
The storyline lacked focus. It meandered without any clear direction. And this can work if your narrator is engaging or compelling enough but Lydia wasn’t. She was pitiable but pitying a character has never made me feel inclined to ‘read’ on to find out what happens to them.
Still, the author’s prose was fairly solid and certain passages even reminded of Hilary Leichter and Sayaka Murata (very matter of fact yet incredibly peculiar, especially when it comes to the 'body' or bodily functions: “My mum’s brain, which sits in a body just metres away from me now, must contain the memory of eating whole meals, of the feel of her body processing those meals, of tasting different flavours.” ).
The way vampirism operates in this world is not clear-cut and I think that really suited this type of story. I did question whether pig blood would be truly so hard to get ahold of and why Lydia didn't try to get ahold of some other source of food sooner...
This novel did not make for a satisfying meal. I never felt quite sure whether I liked what I was being offered and then once it was over I found that I was still hungry. While I liked certain elements and the central idea, the story, plotline, and characters were different shades of average. More than once I found myself thinking that Lydia's story would have been better suited to a shorter format (as opposed to a full-length novel). Still, even if this novel failed to leave a mark on me I look forward to whatever Kohda writes next.
July 29, 2022
as a connoisseur of food and lover vampires this was a great mix of the two
December 27, 2022
This is a strange, but rather engaging novella about a modern day vampire. Lydia, or Lyd as she likes to be called. Lyd has just had to put her mother, also a vampire, in a nursing home, because she is losing her memory. Lyd just rented an art studio and is starting an internship at a stylish art gallery.
Lyd feels ambivalent about being a vampire and wishes she were human. She never knew her human father who is Japanese and British, and her mother is Malaysian. Many different cultures and cross currents circulate through her veins.
She and her mother never "ate" humans, only pig's blood, because her mother is a self- loathing vampire who fells like her condition is a punishment from God. Lyd meets some sweet, young artists who are also looking for meaning in their lives. She kind of meanders directionless through her life until the very end of the story.
Lyd feels ambivalent about being a vampire and wishes she were human. She never knew her human father who is Japanese and British, and her mother is Malaysian. Many different cultures and cross currents circulate through her veins.
She and her mother never "ate" humans, only pig's blood, because her mother is a self- loathing vampire who fells like her condition is a punishment from God. Lyd meets some sweet, young artists who are also looking for meaning in their lives. She kind of meanders directionless through her life until the very end of the story.
August 6, 2022
I couldn’t tell whether I was beginning to like him and wanted to be with him, or whether I was hungry and wanted to eat him.
I knew as soon as I read the negative reviews that I would enjoy this book and I was RIGHT.
Lydia just wants to feel connected to humanity and culture (mainly through food, which she sees as a thing humans can have power over and a complex relationship with, tied to their identity) and find her own identity separate from her mother, which is really the only relationship she has ever known besides a childhood friend.
Despite her immortality, Lydia struggles with some pretty standard human issues. Loneliness, hunger, complex family dynamic. She ends up coming across like one of the most human protagonists I’ve read, and it’s endearing. She’s shy and awkward and sad and has to wear an insane amount of SPF. She has what seems to me like a codependent mother, she doesn’t really have any money but still has plans for a future library, she watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and like everyone finds Riley annoying) and she doesn’t really understand how to interact with people she is interested in or wants to be friends with. At one point she says “lol” to a guy in person and I basically died)
It’s all pretty relatable.
This really isn’t a fantasy or horror novel, it’s written like contemporary, sort of speculative fiction. There’s a bit of dry dark humor. The ideas of good and evil and demons are discussed. (If an animal lives on its young, blood, etc is it evil or is that just its nature?) So if you’re looking for a ton of world building, an elaborate backstory, or some kind of twilight situation, I can pretty much guarantee you’re not going to like this. Lydia just happens to be a vampire. We know how she became one and that’s basically it. I’m not really into vampires, but I do like weirdly lovable and dysfunctional protagonists so this was up my alley. She’s just kind of fumbling along, trying to be good (relatively speaking), find her place in this vast world as an aspiring artist, and other things. I appreciated her growth during the novel and while I know towards the end there are events some people might take issue with, I liked the conclusion and it felt organic to me, considering the subject matter.
I knew as soon as I read the negative reviews that I would enjoy this book and I was RIGHT.
Lydia just wants to feel connected to humanity and culture (mainly through food, which she sees as a thing humans can have power over and a complex relationship with, tied to their identity) and find her own identity separate from her mother, which is really the only relationship she has ever known besides a childhood friend.
Despite her immortality, Lydia struggles with some pretty standard human issues. Loneliness, hunger, complex family dynamic. She ends up coming across like one of the most human protagonists I’ve read, and it’s endearing. She’s shy and awkward and sad and has to wear an insane amount of SPF. She has what seems to me like a codependent mother, she doesn’t really have any money but still has plans for a future library, she watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and like everyone finds Riley annoying) and she doesn’t really understand how to interact with people she is interested in or wants to be friends with. At one point she says “lol” to a guy in person and I basically died)
It’s all pretty relatable.
This really isn’t a fantasy or horror novel, it’s written like contemporary, sort of speculative fiction. There’s a bit of dry dark humor. The ideas of good and evil and demons are discussed. (If an animal lives on its young, blood, etc is it evil or is that just its nature?) So if you’re looking for a ton of world building, an elaborate backstory, or some kind of twilight situation, I can pretty much guarantee you’re not going to like this. Lydia just happens to be a vampire. We know how she became one and that’s basically it. I’m not really into vampires, but I do like weirdly lovable and dysfunctional protagonists so this was up my alley. She’s just kind of fumbling along, trying to be good (relatively speaking), find her place in this vast world as an aspiring artist, and other things. I appreciated her growth during the novel and while I know towards the end there are events some people might take issue with, I liked the conclusion and it felt organic to me, considering the subject matter.
July 11, 2022
I really really loved this book! 🖤
It's so beautifully written and I just loved the characters, I'm going to be always thinking about Lydia and where she's at..
It's a different view on vampirism, which I can appreciate. I like different.
It's hard to put down once you start.
What a stunning debut.
It's so beautifully written and I just loved the characters, I'm going to be always thinking about Lydia and where she's at..
It's a different view on vampirism, which I can appreciate. I like different.
It's hard to put down once you start.
What a stunning debut.
April 13, 2022
Depressed Woman literary fiction, except the woman in question happens to be a vampire. I thought this was a really interesting novel, sparsely written, and with a lot of insights on eating and hunger and alienation--but that's exactly it: it never went beyond interesting for me. The ideas were there, but I just never felt in any way emotionally invested in or moved by this story.
June 7, 2022
NOT your typical vampire story! If you’re looking for that here, you might as well move on. This is basically about a woman trying to find her way after her mom can’t take care of her any more.
Kudos to the author for a very different take on a vampire. I appreciate the info at the end of the book as well.
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Kudos to the author for a very different take on a vampire. I appreciate the info at the end of the book as well.
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
September 7, 2022
sorry all this one was just NOT it for me. it was essentially 240 pages of in-depth character study and yet by the end of it i still could not bring myself to care about lydia's motivations or dreams or like, literally anything about her. lydia essentially floats through the book in a mire of self-pity and pseudo-existential musings, and i could vibe with that if that was the intention and it was played up as the focus of the book, but it's not - i'm pretty sure lydia is meant to be a fully fleshed out, smart character that we can empathize with and root for. i could not. she is not. she was bland and forgettable enough that i had to look up what her name was because i forgot even though i finished this book like three days ago.
yeah this book was a disappointment pretty much all around. there were some bright spots - i enjoyed the writing style although the dialogue tended to fall flat, and while the vampire lore seemed to be intentionally obscure i liked what little we learned about the vampires. when the author really dove into the concept of Hunger with a capital H it worked and i really liked it, but for a book titled woman, eating there really was not that much discussion of hunger and the vilification of women's desires like i was hoping for.
things i really didn't like: the characters! i've discussed my issues with lydia (although let me add that she is a pretentious artist interning at an art gallery at new york, who seems to somehow have an endless font of money to pull from from selling her father's paintings despite the fact that she's paying for her mother to be a live in resident at a nursing home which is like, whatever, okay, do we not have enough stories about wealthy young artists in new york? no? okay), but the side characters fall equally flat throughout the story. ben is one of the other characters who appears frequently, another artist who lydia meets at the studio she's renting and ends up developing feelings for (because he's the first man she's ever befriended in her life). his entire personality is that he's sweet and awkward and kind of an idiot (lydia even mentions that she's surprised by his art being smart because she'd viewed him as kind of stupid the entire time she's known him, which does make me question why she's suddenly in love with him!!). that's the extent of his character depth.
there's a rotation of fellow artists at the studio building who lydia befriends, most of whom have personalities that can be summed up in one word. again, this could be a conscious choice to show that lydia is so isolated from society that she doesn't view the humans around her as actual people EXCEPT that lydia herself is also two-dimensional and so is her vampire mom who she trauma bonded with.
so the characters suck. the plot also felt weird and all over the place to me - i know it's meant to be a character study but the pacing is just not there? it's also inconsistent: lydia has a moment of panic about not being with her mom who was her only companion for the first time in her life and then just never really thinks about it again, she falls in love with ben after speaking to him twice, the art gallery internship is played up to be this big thing and then we only hear about it like three times. it's just jumpy and weirdly paced.
i also really hated everything to do with ben and his girlfriend? like it was just weird. lydia is like no i'm friends with his girlfriend, i really like her! and then she not only has sex with ben, she has this extended daydream where she's like "maybe we could be poly" and then she immediately goes "actually what if i killed and ate his girlfriend so i can be together with this bland idiot white man for the rest of time because we had sex once and it was so good that it almost cured me of being a vampire!" it just feels weird and gross especially given that ben's girlfriend is described by ben as being too ambitious because she wants to be a successful artist?? and then she's given like zero actual personality traits beyond getting in the way of lydia and ben having a relationship, which is like, however you dress it up with the vampire thing that's still just a basic boring straight romance plot.
[side note: after lydia has sex with ben she goes on this philosophical spiral where she says a part of ben is "inside her" and she imagines a "barren path inside myself, my womb a derelict cavern, my ovaries like sad, egg-less nests." i don't think i need to explain why i hate this so much. that's straight romance written by a man level bad writing. i never need to see a woman protagonist out of the blue bemoaning her barren womb and childless existence EVER AGAIN thanks.]
as i mentioned before, the dialogue tended to fall flat - i enjoyed the descriptive parts of the writing but as soon as the characters opened their mouths it sounded pretentious and scripted. a lot of the scenes had promise and were good conceptually but the way they were executed made them feel stiff and almost laughable? like the scene where claire finally accepts her identity as not just half vampire half human, but as a whole creature - this is expressed through her painting the puppet she's bonded with first as a demonic creature, then as a human, then as something in between. like you just could not get any more obvious, in your face, LOOK SHE ACCEPTS HERSELF NOW than that.
also lydia definitely has an eating disorder which could've been REALLY COOL combined with the vampirism and her mother making her eat pigs' blood because she believes that vampires are demons and they don't deserve anything better and her longing to eat like a human - it has all the setup to be a really interesting plot point and then it's just. not. like it's mentioned a couple times that she purposefully doesn't eat and she watches these videos of humans eating as a form of self-harm but it's never really addressed properly? which was sad because it could've been really cool.
anyways the only part of this novel that i actually really enjoyed was the ending. i feel like it was wrapped up in a semi satisfying way, there's resolution with the creepy art gallery director, lydia has a bit of a character change that makes her much more interesting in my opinion? i really liked the ending. however the last five pages don't make up for the absolute slog that is the rest of the book. would not recommend.
yeah this book was a disappointment pretty much all around. there were some bright spots - i enjoyed the writing style although the dialogue tended to fall flat, and while the vampire lore seemed to be intentionally obscure i liked what little we learned about the vampires. when the author really dove into the concept of Hunger with a capital H it worked and i really liked it, but for a book titled woman, eating there really was not that much discussion of hunger and the vilification of women's desires like i was hoping for.
things i really didn't like: the characters! i've discussed my issues with lydia (although let me add that she is a pretentious artist interning at an art gallery at new york, who seems to somehow have an endless font of money to pull from from selling her father's paintings despite the fact that she's paying for her mother to be a live in resident at a nursing home which is like, whatever, okay, do we not have enough stories about wealthy young artists in new york? no? okay), but the side characters fall equally flat throughout the story. ben is one of the other characters who appears frequently, another artist who lydia meets at the studio she's renting and ends up developing feelings for (because he's the first man she's ever befriended in her life). his entire personality is that he's sweet and awkward and kind of an idiot (lydia even mentions that she's surprised by his art being smart because she'd viewed him as kind of stupid the entire time she's known him, which does make me question why she's suddenly in love with him!!). that's the extent of his character depth.
there's a rotation of fellow artists at the studio building who lydia befriends, most of whom have personalities that can be summed up in one word. again, this could be a conscious choice to show that lydia is so isolated from society that she doesn't view the humans around her as actual people EXCEPT that lydia herself is also two-dimensional and so is her vampire mom who she trauma bonded with.
so the characters suck. the plot also felt weird and all over the place to me - i know it's meant to be a character study but the pacing is just not there? it's also inconsistent: lydia has a moment of panic about not being with her mom who was her only companion for the first time in her life and then just never really thinks about it again, she falls in love with ben after speaking to him twice, the art gallery internship is played up to be this big thing and then we only hear about it like three times. it's just jumpy and weirdly paced.
i also really hated everything to do with ben and his girlfriend? like it was just weird. lydia is like no i'm friends with his girlfriend, i really like her! and then she not only has sex with ben, she has this extended daydream where she's like "maybe we could be poly" and then she immediately goes "actually what if i killed and ate his girlfriend so i can be together with this bland idiot white man for the rest of time because we had sex once and it was so good that it almost cured me of being a vampire!" it just feels weird and gross especially given that ben's girlfriend is described by ben as being too ambitious because she wants to be a successful artist?? and then she's given like zero actual personality traits beyond getting in the way of lydia and ben having a relationship, which is like, however you dress it up with the vampire thing that's still just a basic boring straight romance plot.
[side note: after lydia has sex with ben she goes on this philosophical spiral where she says a part of ben is "inside her" and she imagines a "barren path inside myself, my womb a derelict cavern, my ovaries like sad, egg-less nests." i don't think i need to explain why i hate this so much. that's straight romance written by a man level bad writing. i never need to see a woman protagonist out of the blue bemoaning her barren womb and childless existence EVER AGAIN thanks.]
as i mentioned before, the dialogue tended to fall flat - i enjoyed the descriptive parts of the writing but as soon as the characters opened their mouths it sounded pretentious and scripted. a lot of the scenes had promise and were good conceptually but the way they were executed made them feel stiff and almost laughable? like the scene where claire finally accepts her identity as not just half vampire half human, but as a whole creature - this is expressed through her painting the puppet she's bonded with first as a demonic creature, then as a human, then as something in between. like you just could not get any more obvious, in your face, LOOK SHE ACCEPTS HERSELF NOW than that.
also lydia definitely has an eating disorder which could've been REALLY COOL combined with the vampirism and her mother making her eat pigs' blood because she believes that vampires are demons and they don't deserve anything better and her longing to eat like a human - it has all the setup to be a really interesting plot point and then it's just. not. like it's mentioned a couple times that she purposefully doesn't eat and she watches these videos of humans eating as a form of self-harm but it's never really addressed properly? which was sad because it could've been really cool.
anyways the only part of this novel that i actually really enjoyed was the ending. i feel like it was wrapped up in a semi satisfying way, there's resolution with the creepy art gallery director, lydia has a bit of a character change that makes her much more interesting in my opinion? i really liked the ending. however the last five pages don't make up for the absolute slog that is the rest of the book. would not recommend.
December 2, 2024
She barely ate
July 1, 2023
yawn. kept waiting for something interesting to happen and i am still waiting. fuck gideon tho ! and really cool descriptions of her hunger. the rest was eh
August 12, 2024
Teraz mogę już tylko pozostawić ten tekst Waszej ocenie 🙏
——
29 kwietnia 2024 skończyłam tłumaczyć tę książkę i teraz kocham ją jeszcze bardziej.
——
To było coś niesamowitego. Obserwowanie tego, jak mroczna, mordercza istota odnajduje siebie, było doświadczeniem niemalże katarktycznym. „Woman, Eating” jest doskonałą przeciwwagą dla lepiących są od cukierkowej słodyczy hasełek typu „jesteś wystarczając*”, ponieważ uświadamia, że nawet jeśli pogodzimy się ze swoją mroczną stroną, nie od razu będzie to oznaczało, że przejmie ona nad nami kontrolę.
Polecam audiobook w interpretacji Jane Lui, bo lektorka czyta tę historie delikatnym, chłodnym, spłoszonym głosem, który mimo wszystko - a może właśnie dzięki temu - bardzo niepokoi.
Co to była za historia, WOW!
——
29 kwietnia 2024 skończyłam tłumaczyć tę książkę i teraz kocham ją jeszcze bardziej.
——
To było coś niesamowitego. Obserwowanie tego, jak mroczna, mordercza istota odnajduje siebie, było doświadczeniem niemalże katarktycznym. „Woman, Eating” jest doskonałą przeciwwagą dla lepiących są od cukierkowej słodyczy hasełek typu „jesteś wystarczając*”, ponieważ uświadamia, że nawet jeśli pogodzimy się ze swoją mroczną stroną, nie od razu będzie to oznaczało, że przejmie ona nad nami kontrolę.
Polecam audiobook w interpretacji Jane Lui, bo lektorka czyta tę historie delikatnym, chłodnym, spłoszonym głosem, który mimo wszystko - a może właśnie dzięki temu - bardzo niepokoi.
Co to była za historia, WOW!
November 27, 2022
4.0 stars
This was a slow burning character driven horror novel that I fell in love with slowly and all at once. Normally vampire fiction is not my thing but this one was just so refreshing. In many ways, this is a story of an individual with an eating disorder which hit me on a very personal level. I will admit that the plot was very slow and dry in places, but the protagonist's relationship with food and hunger kept me coming back. I highly recommend to fans of literary horror.
This was a slow burning character driven horror novel that I fell in love with slowly and all at once. Normally vampire fiction is not my thing but this one was just so refreshing. In many ways, this is a story of an individual with an eating disorder which hit me on a very personal level. I will admit that the plot was very slow and dry in places, but the protagonist's relationship with food and hunger kept me coming back. I highly recommend to fans of literary horror.
May 10, 2022
Millenial ennui but make it vampire.
January 28, 2023
it's sad girl hours
May 8, 2022
3.5 stars. 🐖🩸🧛♀️🎨🐶 unsettling, viscerally disgusting
September 4, 2022
It was an alright audiobook for me but didn't do much impact on me. Perhaps right book wrong time but for now it's a 3 stars
October 27, 2023
well!! she ate
October 18, 2022
a vampire going through some midlife crisis shit? bizarre but i'm 100% here for it
this could pass as a 'sad girl in her twenties' book plus the part that the "sad girl" is a vampire. fun! 3.5
this could pass as a 'sad girl in her twenties' book plus the part that the "sad girl" is a vampire. fun! 3.5
Read
May 18, 2022Reminder: I don't give stars because they're dumb and bad
Lydia, the titular woman, is consumed with eating. She imagines eating, pantomimes eating, watches others eat, and thinks about eating almost every moment of every day. Lydia does not eat, not much, because Lydia is also a vampire.
Woman, Eating is a rare book title that contains a comma, and just as that comma is caught between two words, our narrator, Lydia, is caught between two worlds. She is human, she is vampire. She is Japanese, she is British. She is a college graduate who has yet to commit to any specific career. She also has no home because she has lost her childhood house when she put her mom, also a vampire, in an assisted living facility.
This book feels a lot like My Year of Rest and Relaxation in that not much happens outside of the narrator's head (at least until the end). Also like MYoRaR, this narrator obsesses over what she does or does not put in her body, and like MYoRaR, the narrator is grieving heavily, while not acknowledging her own loss.
Claire Kohda is a gorgeous writer, and this debut novel contains sentences of simply heartbreaking beauty. Moreover, Kohda handily evokes that weird world-weary newness of being a young adult, the world so open to you that you are paralyzed by choice. That said, the mother character gets dropped like second-period French, and I would have liked a little more resolution for the main character, regardless of which direction she decided to go.
I liked Woman, Eating a lot, and I'll definitely keep a lookout for what Kohda writes in the future.
Lydia, the titular woman, is consumed with eating. She imagines eating, pantomimes eating, watches others eat, and thinks about eating almost every moment of every day. Lydia does not eat, not much, because Lydia is also a vampire.
Woman, Eating is a rare book title that contains a comma, and just as that comma is caught between two words, our narrator, Lydia, is caught between two worlds. She is human, she is vampire. She is Japanese, she is British. She is a college graduate who has yet to commit to any specific career. She also has no home because she has lost her childhood house when she put her mom, also a vampire, in an assisted living facility.
This book feels a lot like My Year of Rest and Relaxation in that not much happens outside of the narrator's head (at least until the end). Also like MYoRaR, this narrator obsesses over what she does or does not put in her body, and like MYoRaR, the narrator is grieving heavily, while not acknowledging her own loss.
Claire Kohda is a gorgeous writer, and this debut novel contains sentences of simply heartbreaking beauty. Moreover, Kohda handily evokes that weird world-weary newness of being a young adult, the world so open to you that you are paralyzed by choice. That said, the mother character gets dropped like second-period French, and I would have liked a little more resolution for the main character, regardless of which direction she decided to go.
I liked Woman, Eating a lot, and I'll definitely keep a lookout for what Kohda writes in the future.
September 23, 2024
Czyta się wyśmienicie, chociaż na koniec faktycznie pojawia się uczucie niedosytu, historia urywa się bez wyraźnej puenty. Liczyłam na mocniejsze i mniej przewidywalne zakończenie.
Nie spodziewałam się, że będzie tu tyle sztuki, bardzo ciekawy motyw baby Jagi.
Interesujący motyw natury wampira, przejmowania wspomnień z krwii, rozważań etycznych odnośnie jedzenia. Z innej strony, jeśli odjąć wampiryzm lub podmienić go na inną sprawę, przez którą czujemy się osamotnieni czy niedopasowani, to otrzymujemy interesujące studium przypadków, kiedy również jako ludzie czujemy się niedopasowani, osamotnieni czy wykluczeni ze wspólnoty. Inni niż wszyscy.
To dość pojemna historia, wiele poruszonych wątków, wiele z nich niedokończonych, białe plamy, momentami dość naiwna i przewidywalna. Pasuje to do wieku i stanu psychicznego bohaterki, ale czytelnika zostawia z niedosytem.
Faktycznie, mogła zjeść więcej mężczyzn wink wink
Nie spodziewałam się, że będzie tu tyle sztuki, bardzo ciekawy motyw baby Jagi.
Interesujący motyw natury wampira, przejmowania wspomnień z krwii, rozważań etycznych odnośnie jedzenia. Z innej strony, jeśli odjąć wampiryzm lub podmienić go na inną sprawę, przez którą czujemy się osamotnieni czy niedopasowani, to otrzymujemy interesujące studium przypadków, kiedy również jako ludzie czujemy się niedopasowani, osamotnieni czy wykluczeni ze wspólnoty. Inni niż wszyscy.
To dość pojemna historia, wiele poruszonych wątków, wiele z nich niedokończonych, białe plamy, momentami dość naiwna i przewidywalna. Pasuje to do wieku i stanu psychicznego bohaterki, ale czytelnika zostawia z niedosytem.
Faktycznie, mogła zjeść więcej mężczyzn wink wink
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