Natalie’s Reviews > Hungerstone > Status Update
Natalie
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The absolute absurdity that Little Miss Lives and Breathes the Austro-Hungarian Empire would leave her ancestral homeland in Styria for Sheffield, of all places. I have to laugh.
— Oct 16, 2025 01:00PM
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Natalie
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Since Kat Dunn seems to have skimmed rather than studied Carmilla, a few clarifications:
1. Carmilla does not have chestnut hair, it’s a very dark brown, with something of gold in it.
2. Carmilla does not turn into a white cat, she turns into a giant black one.
3. Carmilla’s skin is not ashen, it’s rich and brilliant.
4. Carmilla’s eyes are not blue, they’re large, dark, and lustrous.
— Oct 16, 2025 04:27AM
1. Carmilla does not have chestnut hair, it’s a very dark brown, with something of gold in it.
2. Carmilla does not turn into a white cat, she turns into a giant black one.
3. Carmilla’s skin is not ashen, it’s rich and brilliant.
4. Carmilla’s eyes are not blue, they’re large, dark, and lustrous.
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Oct 16, 2025 01:14PM
On a more serious note, Hungerstone suffers from the same symptoms as Bitterthorn. Kat Dunn proves capable of writing Gothic horror in a modern-day voice, but Lenore, much like Mina, is a woefully dull FMC, evoking little beyond surface-level sympathy.
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As for Hungerstone being a reworking of Carmilla, attempting to transfer the themes of Le Fanu’s novella here simply does not work for a multitude of reasons. Like so many of these recent reimaginings (Vertigo Peaks being another that comes to mind), it feels less like an homage and more like an attempt to use the character of Carmilla for clout. There’s also a distinct Dracula-ification of her character, which I can’t stand. It’s a gross misunderstanding of what makes her so compelling in comparison to her male counterparts of the same era.
I get what Dunn is trying to do here, I do, but from my perspective, it would’ve worked far better to create an original female vampire rather than reducing the original prototype for ladypires to something so painfully generic.
