the way i see it, the issue is twofold. on one side is the quality of the writing, the voice given to the character. the narrator is meant to be 51 but rather she sounds like someone who never got over their 20s. particularly telling is the use of sat-level words that do not weave into flow of the prose organically. where there should be sophistication of language, it is instead replaced by the enthusiasm of a freshly graduated highly educated person who wants to share sooo badly how many new words and cultural artefacts they have learned just to make you feel lesser to them. just about the worst kind of person - all show off, no pay off. dorothy honestly believes herself better than criminals so she refuses to hang out with them, instead choosing to get caught rather than forge a false id and passport to leave the country. Ugh, this book. Murderous, cannibalistic cougar food critic got my attention, but it was like the author stopped at that idea herself and never went further. Apparently this was meant to be a sort of “Hey, women can be evil, too” treatise, but instead of developing that idea we get chapter after chapter of our psychopathic narrator detailing all the food and sex she has, and the endless murders and consumption of her lovers.

This article needs an improved plot summary. Please help improve the plot summary. ( December 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Summers, Chelsea G (2019-03-09). "How to Write a Novel (and Heal Your Ravaged Heart)". Medium . Retrieved 2020-12-02. here's how dorothy got caught, by the way: the supposedly intelligent psychopath threw away a receipt near the crime scene and forgot that trash cans don't magically melt when near a fire, unless they themselves are on fire. yet again, either a plothole or another showing of her stupidity, though i don't know which one makes me want to scream more. dorothy then goes on a victim tirade of how brutally women are treated in the justice system and how brutal everyone is to her. emma, being a weirdo just like dorothy, allows dorothy to assault her (almost) and get away with it. It didn’t take long for the forensic psychology and criminal justice students to start fluttering to me, like common gray moths to a bonfire. Two weeks after I’d landed at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, and I’d received my first interview request from a Ph.D. candidate. One request became two, then three, then more. Like hail dropping from the sky, eager students fell before me, jostling each other for my attention. It was delightful to be so avidly courted by so many keenly interested young things. I felt like the belle of the carceral ball. In my jejune imagination, my dream lovers were uniform, each as beautiful, masculine, and replaceable as an Arrow shirt model.

I don’t mind reading from the POV of a psychopath, but it’s a sin to force your reader to endure the POV of a *boring* psychopath. Dorothy describes herself as a “howling void” and the point is that she doesn’t have a soul, but it’s more appropriate because she doesn’t have a personality. She expresses the same three ideas ad nauseum until the very, very end when she says one thing that could have been a sustainable thesis for this book. But again, it wasn’t developed. i get that chelsea, by showing dorothy deny alex's proposal, is trying to show that dorothy chose herself instead of alex and a life with alex, that she chose to remain who she is instead of becoming "just his wife", but in reality, all it shows is that she decided to destroy her and his life out of a pitiful desire to be unique. which, by the way, she very much is not. dorothy also compares herself, a white gentile woman, to anne frank, which is made even worse by something else we have to discuss later on regarding this book. One minute she’s enjoying the pleasures of her lover's tongue, next minute she’s roasting it. It was dark and depraved and I really enjoyed the insight into her mind and memoirs from her prison cell. it's also both intentionally and unintentionally pretentious, falling short of the standard it's setting for itself, which is a little less easy to forgive.

Chelsea G. Summers

this is the most white feminist book i've ever read. it was racist, grotesque, classist, antisemitic, and added nothing to any of the conversations it was desperately trying to grab onto. Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both. Dorothy Daniels, a well-known American food critic turned serial killer, is a year into a life sentence at Bedford Hills Prison in New York, after getting away with murder — and cannibalism — for decades. Over 19 titled chapters, with headings such as Corpse Reviver #2, Banana Bread and Silage, Dorothy writes down her story from prison, longing, like all good sociopaths, to go down in history for her terrible crimes. cannibalism may not be morally sound. but if you're willing to believe in yourself...it can be girlboss.