House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson

HOUSE OF HUNGER is one of those books where it's so well-written and the vibes are so immaculate that I really didn't question anything too deeply, even when things didn't fully make sense. By the end of the book, I still wasn't 100% sure how bleeding worked, or what made the Northerners drink blood, but did I care? No. The sapphic horror was sapphicking, and the gothic atmosphere was SO GOOD.

Marion lives in Fake England with a brother who is addicted to Fake Laudanum. By day she scrubs floors with piss (ammonia, y'all) and by night, she basically makes sure her drug addict brother doesn't choke on his own vom when he passes out after spending all of her hard-earned coin. Life in Fake England suuuucks, so when she sees an advert in the paper inviting young women of a certain age to volunteer to be Bloodmaids (basically vampire food cum concubines), she's tempted. Especially when her brother threatens to drag her right down to the slums with him if she dares to look too highly at at the stars.

Spoiler: she escapes from Fake England and goes to Fake Europe, to be a Bloodmaid at the House of Hunger which is presided over by a mysterious and reclusive countess named Lisavet Bathory. Uh-oh. While living in relative luxury, Marion is exposed to the cruel games that the rich-- and their servants-- like to play at one another's expense whilst currying favor and playing for power that Marion still doesn't quite fully understand.

This reminded me of a slightly less violent and way less sexual THE WICKED AND THE WILLING by Lianyu Tan. Both stories use vampirism as an allegory for the parasitization of marginalized groups. In TWatW, vampirism is an allegory for how colonial powers prey on and destroy the native cultures they conquer, whereas HOUSE OF HUNGER seems to be more of an examination of plutocracies where the ruling class drain (in this case, somewhat literally) the poor class for power, wealth, and resources. It's a timely read, especially now, when many people can barely survive paycheck to paycheck. Many people feel as if they're only a step removed from paying in blood, and in Alexis Henderson's world, the Bloodmaids do, buying into a rose-colored Horatio Alger myth of easy living that may not be true.

My only complaint is that I feel like this book went so heavy on the vibes that it left a lot of other things unexplained. But honestly, I had such a good time, that I don't really care. 

3.5 to 4 out of 5 stars