Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel
An IndieNext Pick! A Best Book of 2022 in Harper's Bazaar, Daily Mail, Glamour, and Thrillist!
Most Anticipated of 2022 in The Millions, Ms. Magazine, LitHub
A young, mixed-race vampire must find a way to balance her deep-seated desire to live amongst humans with her incessant hunger in this stunning debut novel from a writer-to-watch.
Lydia is hungry. She's always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside - the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, 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 these things. Her body doesn't work like those of other people. 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 other artists at the studio space, the people at the gallery she interns at, the strange men that follow her after dark, and Ben, a boyish, 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. In her windowless studio, where she paints and studies the work of other artists, binge-watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and videos of people eating food on YouTube and Instagram, Lydia considers her place in the world. She has many of the things humans wish for - perpetual youth, near-invulnerability, immortality - but she is miserable; she is lonely; and she is hungry - always hungry.
As Lydia develops as a woman and an artist, she will learn that 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 - if she is to find a way to exist in the world. Before any of this, however, she must eat.
"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, Booker-shortlisted author of A Tale for the Time Being
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
A magnificent debut.--The Millions
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, and the novel is ridiculously suspenseful! I was on the edge of my seat, just waiting for Lyd to bite someone, and in the end, I felt utterly and happily bitten.--Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being
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, author of Jenna Book Club Pick Bright Burning Things
We have here a vampire book that will scrub any trace of Twilight from your mind--Claire Kohda's debut follows a young vampire dealing with all kinds of hunger: for acceptance, for artistic success, and for sushi.--Glamour
Here's one for gothic horror fans - a modern day vampire thriller that also covers race, social isolation, unrequited love and parental loyalty.--BBC Radio World Service
Woman, Eating deals a lot with food, hunger, and Lydia's relationship to her body. But this novel also deals with spiritual nourishment, art, womanhood, shame, and identity....Khoda's prose will take you on a deep emotional journey. Trust me, this is not your average vampire story--it is a novel that displays the incredible breadth of what speculative fiction can show us about the human condition.--Tor.com
What Stoker did for the vampire at the end of the nineteenth century, Claire Kohda does for it in our own era....[T]here is much here to mesmerize and beguile readers, not least in Kohda's prose, which is patient, strange, and altogether persuasive.--Times Literary Supplement (London)
Presenting a genuinely fresh take on the vampire mythos is an exceedingly difficult task in a post-Twilight world of bloodsucker rehash, not to mention enduring classic representation, but that's precisely what Kohda manages in her debut novel....A delicate, consistently surprising riff on the vampire narrative, and a stealthy, subversive story of one young woman's declaration of self.--Library Journal (starred review)
The most unusual, original and strikingly contemporary vampire novel to come along in years.--The Guardian
