She’s Always Hungry is a collection of short stories from Eliza Clark exploring body horror, futures, and, above all else, hunger. In eleven varied stories, characters explore the edges of their desires, whether for better skin, a plant that might save the planet, or human flesh. Most of the stories are pretty conventional in structure, though a variety of genres, but one is comprised entirely of reviews of a mysterious takeaway (and is a very fun addition). A few are speculative fiction and it’s exciting to see Clark writing in a genre quite different to her novels Boy Parts and Penance, even though I typically am not a huge fan either of speculative fiction or most short stories, with these focusing on very specific moments rather than worldbuilding.
Overall, this is a collection that has a clear presiding theme, but which explores it in a plethora of ways, not sticking to the same styles of story or similar characters. As I expected from Clark, there’s some fairly dark stuff and some moments of body horror, but also a lot of playfulness, especially when taking things to extremes (like the almost ridiculous ‘The King’ with a cannibal protagonist excited for an apocalypse). There’s some fun little details—I loved that ‘Nightstalkers’ was set in Santa Carla—and generally this collection lived up to what I might’ve hoped for, even though some of the stories were perhaps a little tamer or more predictable than I wanted.
Fiendfully Reading 
You must be logged in to post a comment.