book cover of Woman, Eating
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Woman, Eating

(2022)
A novel by

 
 
'Absolutely brilliant - tragic, funny, eccentric . . . Claire Kohda takes the vampire trope and makes it her own' RUTH OZEKI


Lydia is hungry.


She's always wanted to try sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But Lydia can't eat any of this. The only thing she can digest is blood, and it turns out that sourcing fresh pigs' blood in London - where she is living away from her vampire mother for the first time - is much more difficult than she'd anticipated.

Then there are the humans: the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men who follow her after dark, and Ben, a goofy-grinned artist she is developing feelings for. Lydia knows that they are her natural prey, but she can't bring herself to feed on them.

If Lydia is to find a way to exist in the world, she must reconcile the conflicts within her - between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage, and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans.

Before any of this, however, she must eat.

'Witty and thought-provoking' Stylist
'Blistering' Glamour
'A modern day vampire thriller' BBC
'Unusual, original and strikingly contemporary' Guardian
'Deliciously fresh' Waterstones
'A wholly 21st century take on bloodsucking' Observer
'Fascinating' BookRiot
'Pumps fresh blood into the horror genre' The Times

A BOOK OF 2022 IN HARPER'S BAZAAR, DAILY MAIL, GLAMOUR, BBC, HUFFPOST, TOR.COM





Genre: Horror

Praise for this book

"Unsettling, sensual, subversive, Woman, Eating turns the vampire trope on its head with its startlingly original female protagonist, caught between two worlds. It is a profound meditation on alienation and appetite, and what it means to be a young woman who experiences life at an acute level of intensity and awareness. Claire Kohda's prose is biting, yet lush and gorgeous. I was uncomfortably smitten." - Lisa Harding

"Absolutely brilliant - tragic, funny, eccentric and so perfectly suited to this particularly weird time. Claire Kohda takes the vampire trope and makes it her own in a way that feels fresh and original. Serious issues of race, disability, misogyny, body image, sexual abuse are handled with subtlety, insight, and a lightness of touch. The spell this novel casts is so complete I feel utterly, and happily, bitten." - Ruth Ozeki


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