In her debut novel Woman, Eating, Claire Kohda adds a fresh twist to the classic vampire story. Lydia, the protagonist, is an artist fresh out of art school and she’s hungry. Both for blood and for finding a middle ground between the human and demon sides of her. Throughout the book, she balances an internship at a museum, navigates confusing feelings for her endearingly awkward neighbor and tries her absolute hardest to assimilate into a world built for warm-blooded humans. But what happens when the demon in her is repressed? When the body’s needs are ignored?
Okay, so now onto what I thought about it. With how much I loved the story’s synopsis, I was hoping for more. It just doesn’t stand out for me. What I was hoping was for the protagonist to find a balance between her two identities, but in the end, the scales were severely tipped. I’m not sure if she ended up fully accepting herself.
A large part of my frustration towards the protagonist, frankly, was her blatant homewrecking. That’s what most of the book felt like. Homewrecking with a side of dried pig’s blood. Girl, I get that you think your neighbor is cute, but if the fact that he has a fiancée doesn’t tell you he’s off limits, I don’t know what will. Of course, he’s just as much at fault, but Lydia proceeded to text his fiancée asking to hang out as though she’s not completely going behind her back. That’s not a girl’s girl!
Almost everyone in the novel is an artist or involved in the art world, but still, the art felt shallow. The protagonist’s art, especially, felt contrived, and honestly, like pure nepotism. Given her dad was a famous artist, it felt as though Lydia pursued art simply because it’s what her dad did. For an artist, Lydia seemed uninspired. The descriptions of the one painting she made in the novel felt like one of those contemporary works you see that make you desperately try to derive some sort of meaning from blobs of color, and you wonder if the artist was drunk or half-starved of blood in the making of it. To be fair, Lydia was starving when she painted. Is that what makes her piece profound? Creating something in the absence of something else? She’s taking the “starving artist” stereotype to a new level. Overall, I found the descriptions of different artists and the process of making art to be tedious. So this wasn’t my favorite, but it wasn’t terrible. I enjoyed reading from a female vampire’s perspective. It was interesting to see a power imbalance in favor of the woman. But, alas, I’m left feeling unsatiated and still prefer Twilight.