Book Review: The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Title: The Hunger
Author: Alma Katsu
Release date: March 6th, 2018
First, an apology to Alma. This book has arrived at the top of my TBR two times over the last year or so, but each time I bumped it for an urgent review book for over on Kendall Reviews. That is 100% my bad and now having read this brutal piece of historical fiction, I can’t believe I didn’t read this sooner. So my apologies, Alma.
If you’ve been a life long fan of the mysterious, the macabre and the dark, you’ve no doubt come across the haunting tale of The Donner Party. The group of people who attempted, and failed, to cross over west through a high mountain pass. They never made it and when they were discovered, it was found that some had resorted to eating those who perished before them to try and stay alive.
It is with that back drop that Katsu delivers a novel of sublime beauty. I know it’s an odd phrase to use, considering plot, but the landscape and terrain felt so vibrant, so alive throughout that it felt more cinematic than literal. You could picture the slow moving wagon train crossing the plains. You could see the people and smell the families as they approached the unpassable pass and when things went dark and dirty (and boy do they ever) Katsu dimmed the light and drew the shades and made this readers stomach curdle.
What I liked: As noted in the afterword, Katsu took numerous liberties with the real-life narrative, in telling this tale of the group of settlers migrating west in the hopes of settling in California. They want to leave their troubles and worries behind and create new lives for themselves and for their families.
One thing to note, which works perfectly towards the downfall of the group, is the time period. Late 1800’s. Men are the be-all end-all. They have the say, they make the decisions and in most cases it is the ones with the most money and loudest voice that are the ones to lead, even if they are not the smartest or the most skilled. I’d add in some note about the similarities to today’s political landscape, but I try to keep these reviews away from politics, wink wink.
The characters are so well done. Each and every one of them is given the room to grow and breathe so that when things go south, we feel the losses, we are saddened and dismayed and repulsed when Katsu starts to dispatch them.
Now, for me, I typically don’t enjoy anything epistolary in story telling, but the letters that were used to move the plot along were really great and I liked the pacing changes they created.
Lastly, the ending! THE ENDING! The last quarter or so of this book reads and feels soooo differently than the first quarter and that just shows Katsu’s masterful way she’s crafted this story. It’s as though she wrote the first half with her historical fiction pen and the second half with her brutal horror pen. I loved how this takes a slight turn and things go all splattery.
What I didn’t like: Even though I loved the characters, at the beginning I did find there to be a significant amount of them introduced in a short period of time. Necessary for sure, but if you have trouble keeping track of who is who, you may be bogged down at the beginning.
Why you should buy this: Katsu has delivered an absolutely perfect novel with ‘The Hunger.’ This takes a fairly well known event and breathes fresh life and new blood into it and kept me riveted. From page one until the horribly bleak final line, Katsu will have you unnerved. You start reading knowing something horrible is coming, but she demonstrates that the true horror was the wrong decisions made along the way that ultimately led to the death of numerous people. Books like this are great because it’ll also make you stay up after you’ve finished reading it, doing a deep dive on Google and Youtube.
Well done, Alma, this was so fantastic and I can see why it was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.
5/5
