“𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚊 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚝, 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚟𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚟𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎.”

Thank you @simon.books and @simon.audio for the ARC + ALC ! ♡

Everything in this book resonated with my soul. Damaged but unbroken. Fragile but resilient. Raging, for things taken that cannot be returned and for the yearning for a reckoning.

“𝚆𝚎’𝚛𝚎 𝚅𝚒𝚎𝚝𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚎. 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢’𝚕𝚕 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚠𝚎’𝚛𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚞𝚜𝚞𝚊𝚕.” — lived experience of an immigrant

It’s all the little micro aggressions that add up over time that made me feel seen. It’s the knowing your parents and yet not knowing them, who they were before you existed.

I recommend going in blind. Be ok with blood and a fair amount of violence and trauma and feeling icky uncomfortable.

🥩 The symbolism is as bloody and forbidden as it is cathartic. You may find yourself craving a rare steak on the heels of gagging.

Outstanding work of literary horror — highly recommend picking this up!

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||။‌‌‌‌‌|• 🎧 This would be a good one to sample on audio to hear the pronunciations of the Vietnamese names and words. Otherwise, I found this worked really well in written form!

TW: rape, check other TW if sensitive

I loved this book! After their older brother dies in a car accident, the family is confronted with awful change and grief. The book dives into generational trauma juxtaposing the parents as Vietnamese immigrants and the kid’s who are American born. The female rage is top notch. After experiencing violence, the MC suddenly has intense urges.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

What Hunger follows first generation Vietnamese-American teen Ronny as tragedy strikes at the start of her Freshman year of high school, propelling her on a journey through grief, rage, and generational trauma.

There really is nothing like a healthy bit of cannibalism as a proxy for the experience of female teenagerhood, and What Hunger pulls this schtick off exceptionally well. Watching Veronica grapple with not only the pitfalls of being fourteen, and of being a fourteen year old girl, but also an immeasurable loss and the weight of her family and cultural history was at turns beautiful, haunting, and heartbreaking. There are certainly some excellent body horror moments, for readers with that genre of taste, but What Hunger’s strength really lies in this astonishingly relatable coming-of-age story that manages to feel both fresh and familiar.

Ultimately, What Hunger was an astonishingly spectacular read, and one I will almost certainly be revisiting when the hunger strikes.

4.5*

I was prepared to make the obvious comparison to "The Eyes are the Best Part," and while I think there's some overlap here, I will say that I found "What Hunger" to be more surprising. I'd call this literary more than horror, although there are certainly many dark elements.

I don't know how to talk about this book without spoiling it, except to say that it was exactly what I expected, until it wasn't. The writing is deceptively plain and direct, almost dissociatively so, which fits with Veronica's mindset. I can see why this book has been getting so heavily hyped, and I very much enjoyed it. Publication-wide, we seem to be in a "cannibalism + feminist rage" era, but this book does something different than the other titles I've read in the same subgenre. Prepare to be uncomfortably hungry for the duration of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A haunting and amazing coming of age story about female rage, generational trauma, and a touch of cannibalism. The story follows the daughter of a Vietnamese immigrant, Veronica Nguyen, as she deals with the grief of losing her brother, of her family's turmoil, and the turmoils of being different in high school. Told from a gripping voice, Veronica is filled with questions, with anger, and with a hunger to take control of her life. I found myself completely compelled by this book and instantly hooked. Ronny's voice is so strong and her anger is palpable. The struggles of her parent's relationship, of the way her own culture handles things, just spoke to me. As the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, as a Vietnamese girl myself, I could so deeply connect and empathize with everything that Ronny was feeling and going through. Catherine weaves such a fascinating story and it'll have you guessing until the very last page. I truly adored this book and if you love female rage stories, absolutely pick this one up!!

Release Date: August 12, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

What Hunger is a haunting coming of age tale packed with generational trauma, visceral feminine rage, and poignant family drama.

Another stunning literary horror novel from 2025! I loved this one. Dang’s prose is reflective and noteworthy. I especially liked the deep dive into Vietnamese-American identity and immigrant family dynamics. This was an emotional journey, and I will be thinking about this book for quite a while longer.

“I realized this was the bitter taste of adulthood—the numerous ways life could topple over someone, one thing after another, relentless, like a flurry of blows. There was no respite from it, the constant aggression of life. We were all at its mercy, we adults. We were expected to just carry on.” 
 
4.5 stars rounded up ⭐️ 
 
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘏𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 by Catherine Dang explores themes of family, immigration, adolescence, and female rage. It’s the perfect literary horror novel - flawlessly blending meaningful commentary and gore. The writing style was easy to read and I was immediately hooked from the first chapter. I think this is a book that is best to go in blind so I won’t give anything away with a summary.  
 
I would highly recommend you check this book out August 12th! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. <3 
 
“There was a drive in me, a hunger buried deep within me. I moved without thought, gulping him down like air. What hunger.” 
 
⚠️p.s. check trigger warnings before reading⚠️

Thank you NetGalley and Catherine Dang for the advance reader copy of What Hunger. I enjoyed every chapter of this book. It made me experience all different types of emotions: sadness, anger, confusion, curious, and nervous. I was interesting in this book because it mentions cannibalism 😅 and was an interesting ride.

I really appreciate being about to view the Vietnamese culture and family life through the book. I am confused about certain part of the book, like did she dream this stuff or did she really just started eating people. 🤔

Overall I give is a solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It was a fun coming of age story where grief can overwhelm you so much that you wanna take life back.

This book packs a punch - there are a lot of topics covered within this novel. From difficult family dynamics, grief, coming-of-age, cultural history and differences, and an intense hunger that takes over compared with greif.

This book hits a lot of rough and difficult points- so definitely check your trigger warnings. There are many points that will invoke feminine rage and gives "good for her" revenge where you support and cheer on the main character.

When dealing with grief and loss your FMC hears a folklore from her family, and it almost is like her brain to avoid the sadness and loss hooks into this as a distraction and she starts getting increasingly strong and weird cravings. By the end of the novel part of me wonders if her hunger was a metaphor for her grief?

There are many girlhood plots to this novel as well, it is not a straight up horror novel. You have many points where the intense violent thoughts/actions will subside and focus more on missing assignments at school, or a family fight at the dinner table. I think this just adds more layers to the story and really opens you up more to the characters. They really open up by the end of the story and as Ronnie is learning more about her parents history so are we, they are not just 'Mom and Dad' , both of them had entirely different lives that lead them to this point and I loved the realization Ronnie had that her parents are human as well.

To the hunger points of this book, they were "fun" to read seeing it intensify as we get deeper and deeper into the novel and then the descriptions. I GAGGED a handful of times, so that leads to an applause from me.

Pre-Read Notes:

This was a shameless cover+title request because that title? with that tiny trickle of blood in the image? Well it made me hungry for a certain kind of book. Hoping I love this like I did TENDER IS THE FLESH and A CERTAIN HUNGER.

"The adults in our lives acted so sure of everything , but we sensed it was a lie. As teenagers, we had the compulsive need to humble them— to point out their hypocrisy, their uncertainty, their lies. They were flawed people, too." p90 Even though this book is for and about high schoolers, it's universally familiar. The friends, the boys, the mundane activities that serve as backdrop to the life young people want from adulthood, and rarely get.

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) This one didn't leave as much of an impression on me as some of the other books I read that surround cannibalism. I think this is maybe mismarketed as a thriller, as it read to me as a very dark coming of age drama. And I didn't like the ending, which I felt was really abrupt.

I did however, like the style and perspective the author chose-- sort of a stream of consciousness describing a powerful change within this young girl who is desperate for some kind of agency. Stream of consciousness is a difficult perspective to write from and for me, usually a no-go. Authors sometimes burden the plot and character development with unnecessary character material in a bid for authenticity. But I think paring all that away really works for Dang here.

I recommend this one to fans of weird fiction and dark, character driven stories. If stream of consciousness is something you like, you will love this one. They don't share themes or subjects, but because of the POV, this book really reminds me of LISTEN TO YOUR SISTER by Neena Viel, which is also an excellent coming of age drama and totally weird.

My Favorite Things:

✔️ "We never opened the front door at night. Our parents only did it for people who called us beforehand. But everyone else was a safety concern. Mẹ said there were too many crazy people in the world, too many thieves eager to barge in. That was why we never gave out candy for Halloween." p33 Two things. First, the mentally ill people in the world are the last people you need to be worried about and thinking otherwise is because of stigma. Second, this is a great example of how fear stops us from loving our lives.

✔️ ""...But if you’re being good just to get into heaven, are you actually being good? Or are you being selfish?”" p39 Interesting questions abound in this book. It's giving more weird coming of age vibes than hunger body horror vibes though, at least so far.

✔️ "“You’re hurting them. It’s not—it’s not necessary,” I said. Gigi shrugged, the cage trap in her hands. “These things happen sometimes,” she said. “Just don’t think about it.”" p144 It's hard to be soft in a hard, heartless world.

✔️ I was *fully* unprepared with what came at the three quarters mark, despite lots of clear and clever foreshadowing. I loved it! Omg is it was so visceral and physical and disgusting, it was awesome.

Notes:

1. content notes: animal cruelty, animal death, blood, death of a sibling, grief, depictions of depression and anxiety, corporeal punishment (mention), disordered eating, raw meat, ableist language,

Thank you to the author Catherine Dang, Simon & Schuster, and NetGalley for an accessible digital arc of WHAT HUNGER. All views are mine.

A coming of age story seen through the lens of feminine rage and cannibalism. Ronny Nguyen is having the most boring summer ever until tragedy strikes and the family loses her brother, Tommy. Ronny is having trouble adjusting to high school, even without the tragic loss of Tommy. Her Vietnamese parents never talk about the past and Ronny isn't comfortable sharing her grief. After a week or so of high school, Ronny gets invited along to a party. The unthinkable happens, waking up a carnivorous side of Ronny and a whole lot of anger. THIS is the feminist rage story you've ben waiting for, and a story of cannibalism done well. (Haha. See what I did there?)

*Thanks to to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this digital e-arc.*

What Hunger is a dark, emotionally charged coming-of-age story about Ronny Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, as she struggles with generational trauma, family expectations, and the violent complexities of girlhood. When tragedy strikes and an act of violence awakens a monstrous hunger within her, Ronny must confront the buried pain of her family's past and the raw power rising inside her. Blending cultural memory with supernatural horror, this novel is a haunting exploration of rage, identity, and the ties between mothers and daughters.

I was hoping for more backstory from the parents, especially the mother as her story felt rushed and underdeveloped by the end. Although the book was relatively short, it took me a while to get through because the plot was slow to unfold. That said, I’d still give it 3.5 stars overall; it’s a good story with a strong emotional core, even if parts of it felt incomplete.

4.5 stars. This book is heavy and dark and I ate it up (pun intended). Dang's writing is beautiful. I loved getting a glimpse of this family and their culture. All the characters were so interesting. I didn't love Ronny's obsession with revenge--I felt she was better than that, more complex. The ending was so good. Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC

What Hunger is an emotional, dark story of 14 yo girl named Virginia (Ronny). After a few too many tragic events Ronny craves answers and maybe a little bit of guidance.

I guess we could call this a coming of age meets cannibalism story.

What Hunger had me captivated from the beginning, I won’t lie it was an emotional start, but the story has an air of mystery to it as well.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes dark and emotional fiction or you’re just looking for a little diversity in your reading.

⭐️4.5⭐️

In this coming-of-age story, we follow Ronny Nguyen, a 14-year-old Vietnamese American girl who works to overcome grief, generational trauma, and the complexities of teenage girlhood after tragedy strikes her and her family.

I always enter books blind, and I am so glad I did with this one. I was expecting a fun story with a dash of cannibalism, but I ended up reading a deeply complex story about intergenerational trauma, the pressures of immigrant families in America, and a profound coming-of-age story rich with feminine rage, all coated in vivid body horror.

This story was much heavier than I was expecting. Trauma and loss are rich with this one, and I loved how Dang translated these elements directly into our main character’s hunger. It’s emotional, painful, and a very gritty read that will leave you feeling hollow for a good portion of the book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. If you enjoyed The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim, or enjoy rich literary stories coated in feminine rage, I highly recommend checking this one out! Be sure to check those trigger warnings though.

Special thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the access to this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I'm not sure how to review this one for several reasons. I loved the premise going in; however, the repeated wording, i.e., Ma & Ba, seemed excessive to me. I powered through and did enjoy the book, just not as much as I'd liked.

I do enjoy female rage books and will look for more from this author in the future.

For fans of ‘Chlorine’ by Jade Song or ‘Nightbitch’ by Rachel Yoder, ‘What Hunger’ is a coming-of-age horror story of a Vietnamese teenager struggling to heal from a sudden death in her family, generational trauma, racism, and of being an immigrant in a predominantly white society. This is a unique story of mother-daughter-bonding, told from the perspective of Ronny shared with stories from her parents’ time in Vietnam.

As with most women’s fiction stories centered around female agency, I suggest to read with little context, and let Ronny’s rage unleash with each word. As an immigrant myself, ‘What Hunger’ was relatable between the societal expectations as an Asian woman to expectations as the daughter of South Asian parents. Some of Ronny’s high school experiences as a 13-year old had me reminiscing on how it was to grow up in a community where I was the minority, and still am. As Ronny unravels, our emotions do the same, empathizing with the little and feral emotions she’s experiencing. I loved reading about Ronny’s transformation from grief to rage, ending with a somber moment accepted by her mother which led to stronger bond between mother and daughter.

For such a short book, the writing is savory and deliciously depicted the character growth in Ronny as she finds freedom and justice in her own way, living in a man’s world. It’s dark, aggressive, emotional, empowering and a nod to female rage! We all need a little bit of fuck you attitude that Ronny learns to embody with her character arc.

TW: body horror, grief, rape, cannibalism

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC!

I really enjoyed What Hunger and the ending really surprised me. I misunderstood that this book was more thriller than horror, but there are a few gruesome scenes. All and all I thought this was a great story and I’d definitely more from this author.

Fans of The Eyes Are the Best Part will definitely enjoy this one!

“It was a peace offering. Our family didn’t apologize with words. We were blunt about everything else, but apologies felt stilted, strange. We showed remorse through kindness, a favor, a small gift. Sometimes we continued like normal, as though there had been no fight.”

What Hunger is both a gory cannibalistic horror novel and a tender meditation on grief, Vietnamese culture, and family dynamics. It takes a special kind of story to make me cry within the first few chapters – this reading experience is gut-wrenching. It grapples with sibling death, the Vietnamese war, domestic violence, animal cruelty, and sexual assault. The cannibalism elements of this are rooted in survival, revenge, anger.

This novel does not shy away from the horrors of real life, but it is also a hopeful story filled with love and joy. What Hunger makes a point to remind readers of the strength of the human spirit in the aftermath of suffering and devastation. Our main character, Veronica, experiences so much hardship by the age of 14 – but she also has teeth that she is not afraid to use to protect herself.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and Negalley for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review posted to Goodreads 8/4/25.

Review to be posted to Instagram on release week.

If I had a nickel for every YA horror book I read this year that starred an Asian American woman with cannibalistic tendencies, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. And honestly, I loved it.

What Hunger is a fantastic representation of what it's like growing up in an Asian American with immigrant parents--these experiences match very similarly to my husband's upbringing and experience in that same position. All Veronica wants is to fit in, to go to high school and be normal. She wants her parents to be present people in her life, she wants them to care. But alas, tragedy strikes her twice and awakens a desire for raw meat.

And not just raw meat--HUMAN meat. And vengeance. Definitely vengeance.

As a former teenage girl who ALSO had vengeance in her heart, I really loved Veronica. She was dealt a really crappy hand and tried to make the most of it, despite people tearing her down every step of the way. While I never have had the desire to EAT someone, I definitely remember what it was like to be full of emotions you can't process, no tools to process them, and to focus on attacking everyone and everything around you to compensate for that.

I really loved how everything came together at the end--not a perfect ending, not a perfect resolution, but information that Veronica FINALLY gets about both of her parents to help her better understand why they are the way that they are, and why she was raised the way she was. If parents won't go to therapy, they at least need to share their trauma with us so WE can deal with what their trauma did to us! The only thing that didn't really work for me was the bit with the neighbors. It's definitely relevant to the story, but it just felt like a bigger catalyst or buildup of the tension between Veronica and Gigi/her husband was missing. I think having another event or two of actual interaction would have made the ending payoff a bit bigger and less out of the blue.

If body horror and gore is not your thing--you're going to want to skip this. There are quite a few sections of the book where there are some pretty graphic descriptions of cannibalism. If that doesn't bother you--you are my people, and you're going to have a good time.

Overall, I really enjoyed this! Teenage me would have made this my entire personality--definitely a must read for the teenage horror lovers in your life!