There’s a monster living in Cadenze. Confined to a pit deep inside the mountain, it’s been waiting – hungering – for its next meal. And Angelina Sicco, with her wonderfully full life, tops the menu.
Attaching itself to her, the monster lurks somewhere in Angelina’s mind, waiting for the perfect moment to feast. But both the monster and Angelina haven’t counted on one thing; Jagvi, Candenze’s most infamous fomer resident, and Angelina’s brother’s ex. And though Jagvi’s return brings with her a score of long repressed memories and desires, a raft of difficult questions and conversations, she’s also the only one who seems able to repel the monster – her touch enough to keep the demon at bay.
But Jagvi doesn’t belong in Cadenze. The townsfolk have made that quite clear, and she’s close to overstaying her welcome. And Angelina doesn’t want her here anyway. Right?
Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta‘s Feast While You Can is a gorgeous queer horror, dripping with small town prejudice, family trauma, and a very motivated monster. It’s a curious beast (the book, not the monster, though I suppose that’s curious too), never really revealing its hand until the very end.
That’s the thing about the team of Clements and Datta – little by little, their beautiful writing sinks in, gripping harder and harder, until you’re right at the edge of the monster’s pit yourself. Feast While You Can is truly the perfect name for this novel – it simply begs to be devoured.
Cadenze is almost a monster itself – a looming background figure to not just Angelina and Jagvi’s lives, but those of everyone within its boundaries. It leaves an impression on every single character, imprinting on them in ways that inform who they are and how they behave. Even Angelina’s creature is bound to it. Cadenze may be small, but with its old rivalries and prejudices, it stands as a compelling argument that it takes more than just sharp teeth to make a monster.
Feast While You Can hits a variety of marks, from body horror, possession, and haunted houses to generational trauma, yearning, and coming out stories. It’s a tale of a hungry monster, yes, but it’s also a story about freedom – hard won, denied, and deceptive – and about love – familial, manipulative, and unrequited.
It’s a sometimes sexy, occasionally funny, often eerie as hell, thoroughly modern take on the horror genre – an A24 movie in literary form. Unsettlingly brilliant, Feast While You Can is not to be missed.
Come for the scary monsters. Stay for the love story.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta’s Feast While You Can is out now through Simon & Schuster. Grab yourself a copy from your local bookstore HERE.
