My reading of A Feast of Putrid Delights was sheer luck. I was absently scrolling through Threads, and I came upon Valentina’s post about the book. Of course, I’m just scrolling, so I’m not really reading text, but that cover… my god, that cover made me stop in my tracks. The colours are so beautiful, the text is well done and you damn well if you put a bunch of eyeballs on a book, I’m going to have to read it. I don’t make the rules, okay?
When I read the summary for this book, I will admit I was a little hesitant. I don’t name names, but there was a book with kind of a similar concept that I had tried and had to DNF because it was so pretentious that even I was bothered by it. (That’s saying something, lmao.) The cover sucked me back in, though, so I downloaded it to my Kindle app and started reading.
Coming in at only 94 pages, Valentina is one of those talented authors that can tell an entire story in such a short word count. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t have complained if there had been more, but even in just 94 pages, the story felt complete. The writing was very good, the editing was good and the formatting was good. Overall, it was pleasant to read.
A Feast of Putrid Delights is about a character named Antonia. I found Antonia to be a likable character in that she was very human. She had her good parts, but she also had her flaws, and the author did not shy away from those flaws. Neither did Antonia, for that matter.
Anyway. Several years ago, Antonia went through something horrible and, as a result, she lost her ability to sleep. First of all, total relate. She tries whatever she can to even just get a nap, and nothing works. Not even an Ambien prescription, which, again, total relate. (I’m serious. Give me the highest legal dose of Ambien and it’s a nope from me.)
Fortunately, Antonia does eventually find something that works, but unfortunately… it’s an illegal street drug called Cloud. It does its job of knocking her out but she never knows when she’s going to come to and there’s something even worse—one of the side effects that she experiences is that everything (except peanut butter smoothies!) tastes like rot to her. Which is unfortunate, because…
Professionally, Antonia is a chef. She runs a successful restaurant with her ex and now best friend, Mika. Mika was a character I really liked, because he was just… a good guy. They hadn’t broken up under the best of terms—and that was on her—but he was still there for her and still willing to build a restaurant for her. Even though he’s played the drug game with Antonia before, he even sticks around when she starts using Cloud and it gets out of control. He is constantly showing up to check in on her, taking over more of the responsibilities at the restaurant so that Antonia can try to get herself together. We could all use a Mika, honestly.
So, Antonia is completely out of it. No matter what she or anyone else cooks, it’s all completely awful and makes her sick. Personally, I think I’d rather be stuck being awake than not being able to eat, but Antonia continues to use Cloud, either because it’s that addictive or because she is so obsessed with sleep.
She does eventually find something that she can eat, but I felt like she was just too out of control to keep that diet and maybe get her life back under control. *old man shakes angry fist at Cloud* In fact, I’d almost say that her finding what she could eat was kind of like a side note, which I don’t know if that was intentional on the author’s part or not, but I absolutely loved it. And I’ll explain why.
As one can expect, Antonia winds up losing everything. Except, of course, our dear Mika. Our dear, sweet Mika who invites Antonia to come stay with him for a while even though she openly hates Mika’s fiancé. He’s just so desperate to get her into a better place and to help her. I imagine he thought that having her nearby would make it easier to keep an eye on her.
… and I can’t tell you any more about the book. I can circle back to Antonia’s ability to eat feeling like a side note being a delightful thing because it makes the ending of the book really stand out. Valentina gives you an ending that you knew yet, you… are completely like, “Wait, what??” when it happens.
God, I could honestly just go on about this book forever. Let this be a note to all authors that THE COVER YOU USE MATTERS. I know some authors think that they aren’t important, but I would have scrolled by without seeing that cover and would have thus missed out on an amazingly excellent book. Invest in your covers if you can. Listen to professionals. Put eyeballs on everything.
Anyway. Yes. I devoured (ha!) this book in one sitting and immediately turned to interrupt my wife’s workday because I needed to tell her the plot immediately or I was going to explode. (She doesn’t have the time or energy to read these days, not to mention she’ll forget what I told her within a week, so I always summarize my reading for her.) I also immediately contacted the author and asked if it was possible to get a signed copy of it and Valentina was so sweet and wouldn’t even let me pay for it. It’s now sitting on my bookshelf as one of my most prized possessions.
This is a book I would recommend to everyone. Ever. I wouldn’t say that it was scary necessarily (but scaring me is… I don’t even know if it can be done; Kelley, shut up about The Strangers) but it was definitely eerie and unnerving and just made your skin crawl. You’ll fly through each page in a desperate desire to see what happens next, what Antonia does, what happens to baby boy Mika, and when the ending comes along—
Well, I have no sense of time so I cannot tell you how long it’s been since I’ve read the book, but I can tell you that I still think about that ending at least once a day.
Can I give this book six Pinkies??
