Book: Hungerstone
Author: Kat
Dunn
Pages: 400
Date(s)
Read: March 13th, 2026 to May 4th, 2026
Date
Published: February 6th, 2025
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Gothic, Vampire, Sapphic
Characters: 4/5
Writing style: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Ending: 5/5
Cover: 4/5
Format: Hard Cover
Date Bought: May 23rd, 2025
Book Cost: $19.70
Review:
Hungerstone
is a decadent work of gothic fiction that is sure to please fans of the
macabre.
In
Hungerstone we follow Lenore who is the wife of a wealthy businessman.
Desperate to please her husband, she has let life control her. She has spent
years repressing her desires, wants, and needs until she meets Carmilla, a
woman she takes in after an accident. Despite Carmilla's strange behavior,
Lenore finds herself drawn to the enigmatic woman.
Lenore is
easy to empathize with. She has fallen to the whims of a husband who sees her
as nothing more than a tool, in a society that views women as less than.
Watching her character growth is enthralling. You really find yourself hoping
she is able to break out of the way in which the world has constrained her. I
wish I felt as invested in Carmilla and the romance, but found both to be
lacking. Carmilla never quite feels like a fully realized character. Because of
this, I constantly found myself questioning Lenore's desire to be with
Carmilla. The writer spent so much time making Carmilla mysterious it's like
she forgot to make her interesting.
The First
half of the novel is pretty slow, it takes half the book for things to pick up
beyond a meandering pace. A good portion of the book goes through the very
mundane and routine life that Lenore lives, which does help build up her
background and set a lot up but can make for a very long-winded reading
experience.
Overall,
Hungerstone is great but the romance leaves a lot to be desired as does the
character of Carmilla. If you're looking for a good vampire novel this one
certainly fits the bill but its nothing new, unique or stand out in the genre.
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