PLOT SUMMARY:
Lena’s body is no longer her own. It is occupied by a growing appetite, a hunger that demands to be fed. From inside her luxury apartment, Lena tries to appease it gorging herself, day and night. Whole loaves of bread, protein shakes—tins of cat food if all else fails.
When Joan, an actress on the cusp of stardom, moves into the apartment above, Lena is quick to make friends. She soon finds herself in Joan’s orbit enjoying the trappings of wealth and privilege, the kind she has always pined for. But with the hunger demanding more and more, Lena’s carefully constructed image of herself starts to unravel. And as her appetite veers into the inedible, she must fight to remember who she is.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
This novel pulled me in from the very first page. Lena is an instantly relatable protagonist, embodying the struggles faced by so many young people today: precarious employment, unstable housing, and the constant uncertainty of trying to make ends meet. So when she gets the opportunity to live in a luxury apartment, it’s easy to understand why she’s so desperate to hold on to that home and the comfortable life it seems to offer.
Her growing friendship with Joan is equally understandable. Lena is profoundly lonely, particularly after the death of her beloved cat, and with her sister living all the way in Australia while she remains in the UK, she has very little in the way of companionship. It’s easy to see why she becomes so attached to Joan and why this connection means so much to her.
The body horror unfolds gradually, with an even slower-building sense of dread that creeps under your skin. But don’t let the measured pacing fool you: the ending delivers a real punch, leaving you with an unsettling impression that will linger long after you’ve turned the final page.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Blackstone Publishing for the ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
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