A Certain Hunger

By: Chelsea G. Summers

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

Eat Pray Love meets American Psycho in a seductive and sinister debut literary thriller. 

Food critic Dorothy Daniels indulges in her homicidal urges by murdering her lovers and devouring their organs in this intense, visceral, and lushly told tale of food, sex, power, and the pursuit of a very particular taste set between New York and Italy. 

Please Note: A Certain Hunger contains adult language and depictions of violence. Discretion is advised.

©2019 Chelsea G. Summers (P)2019 Audible Originals, LLC.

Ugh.

I'm not going to finish listening. I'm no prude, I love all things thriller/mystery/horror/romance and it takes a whole lot to offend me or disgust me. This book did both. And the author's constant use of metaphors and comparisons is so tedious that I often ended up losing my concentration and couldn't even remember what the sentence was talking about in the first place! I love the idea of this as an original story but this just didn't work for me; it felt forced and just...disappointing, I guess, is the best I can say. The reader was actually really good, enjoyed her voice very much.

Delicious

Hilarious, dark, sexy, brilliant, joyful, amazing. Also the obvious relish of the voice actor was a huge bonus--so much more fun.

Wickedly Savory

From the first scene this book had me hanging on every word. The food scenes made me hungry. The sex scenes made me horny. And the psychopathic murderess enticed me to want more of her story.

Delicious!

Truly compelling, funny, outrageous and clever. I loved it. Summers' prose style is just excellent. A great listen and will make for a great read, too!

Satisfying and Entertaining

Loved everything about this. Lush prose, witty, dark, delicious, top notch character arc. Listen immediately.

Fabulous

I’ve been dying to listen to this and it’s so smart, so good, so much fun, so very wrong in all the right ways. Recommended!

The perfect brain candy book

A Certain Hunger was the literary equivalent to a car wreck on the side of the highway: you know it's grisly stuff, but you can't pry yourself away from it. Dorothy Daniels is deliciously heinous: like Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov but without the fevered conscience, like Camus's Meursault but with a taste for more victims than a couple of Arabs, like Süskind's Grenouille but leading a life of decadence, instead of seeking the innocence not-yet-lost. At times, you will be repulsed and yet, sympathize with the protagonist.
This book is well-written and well-narrated, made you see, feel, understand, and taste the innermost emotions and thoughts of a psychopath. The very implausibility of it makes it a compelling read and takes one into a world where the sense of taste overrides any moral code. I'd say it must be one of the weirdest books I have ever read, but I enjoyed it immensely.

Hands Down My Favorite Audiobook So Far

This book is perfect. The writing, the story, the narrator all come together for one incredible listening experience. I adored this book so much. I can’t stop talking about it and promoting it to others. I want every smart, sexy, witty woman I know to read it. I don’t kill or eat men but I connected with Dorothy so much and I loved her as a lead character. I will read everything that this writer comes out with and if HBO or Netflix buys it- I’ll watch it!

Exquisite as a bomb

Chelsea Summers wields language like an exquisite and devastating instrument. I binge listened -- not just for the sex and bloody murder for the dead honest portrait of female friendship

I devoured every second

loved this book. very well written with violent pros. I didnt want to stop listening.

More please

Very sad to have finished ACH this morning, beautifully read (and I am an Italian speaker, always ready to flinch at a badly pronounced word) in Huber's arch drawl. Dorothy Daniels is a wry, compelling Humbert Humbert (without the pedofilia) of a narrator, impossible to dislike as she regales us with her story of food, murder and cannibalism. The novel succeeds in the gargantuan task of combining in depth knowledge of the history of food and drink, informed critique of the US food chain, social commentary, criminal minds, butchery, etymology, architectural history and spicy erotic writing in a wonderful, fast-paced and light-handed novel, never lapsing into the stentorian or tedious. The writing is poetic, particularly about the joys of food and eating, and the prose is caressing and lush. Loved this, standing ovation from my kitchen in Tuscany where I will be experimenting with fennel and legumes this afternoon (not some of the other recipes though...).

Even better than I expected

I joined Audible specifically for this novel because I will read anything by CGS. I was apprehensive at first as I am not an audiobook listener naturally but I think this is a wonderful book made even more wonderful by the masterful narration. The pace, richness and life (or beautiful Italian!) it brings to Dorothy could not have been created in my head as easily.

I knew this would be a book about men, sex, food and female power. What I did not expect also was a love letter to the messy joy of Italy or the wonderful thread of female friendship that underpins the different stages of Dorothy's life.

It is gory and wordy and delicious and I listened it to it greedily in every spare moment until it was finished because it kept me captivated and made me laugh out loud with an evil cackle more times than I could count.

I could not recommend highly enough to listen to this and I intend to devour it in a different way when it comes out in print.