178/111 - Season To Taste or How to Eat Your husband by Natalie Young

I downloaded this book onto my iPad very recently as I knew that I wanted to read it as soon as it came out. There's been loads of hype about this book and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

Lizzie Prain has killed her husband Jacob, and not wanting to go to prison decides to dispose of his body by eating him piece by piece. All the while we are given glimpses into their relationship and Lizzie's plans for her new life.

Sadly I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. I am partly going to attribute this to the fact that I read this on my iPad, with a headache and just as I have started wearing new glasses, which has made reading the text a little annoying. However there was plenty about he book itself that also irritated me. I didn't like or really empathise with Lizzie at all, and I didn't really understand why she killed her husband, so maybe I missed something? I didn't like the way the present tense narrative was mixed with bits of the past. I didn't really like the numbered 'list' format of her thoughts and feelings while cutting up and cooking her husband's remains, although I understand why it was there and presented that way. I guess I was hoping that this would be a little bit more like a mixture of Tampa (which has a disturbing theme and yet a narrator who I really enjoyed reading and empathised with, to a certain extent) and Like Water for Chocolate (which incorporates human emotions and relationships with cooking with a pinch of magic realism).

I really wanted to like this but I feel like I maybe didn't 'get' it. I've read a couple of other reviews where people talked about the humour of the book, whereas I didn't get that at all while I was reading it.

I'm not disappointed in the book, it was really well written, and it made me squirm in places when Lizzie describes eating the various parts of her husband, which was sort of enjoyable. I was more disappointed that I didn't like it. Even though everything pointed towards me loving this book, I don't think it was for me, for some reason.

I guess you can't win them all.