This had everything that I was hoping for and enjoyed the horror and psychological elements to this. The concept was everything that I was hoping for and enjoyed how strong the characters worked in this story. I was hooked from the first page and enjoyed getting to read this. I had me guessing if it was in the characters head or real.

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.