Cannibal Love

Hannibal photos from Hannibal Wikipedia.

Hi there! My name is Kim and I’m new around here. I’m so thrilled to be a part of Midnight Society. I look forward to talking about book love, writing, and horror—since those three things are pretty much my life.

For my first post, I’m going to be talking about cannibals, and why I love them, because I’m just that type of girl. (I’ve always been a zombie fangirl, so I figure cannibals and zombies kinda go hand-in-hand, am I right?)

Now—no, before you start thinking like that I want to clarify something—I mean fictional cannibals, of course. Not real ones. I’ve never met a real cannibal (at least I don’t think so, but you never know).

My favorite show of all times currently is NBC’s HANNIBAL (pictures of the ever so handsome Mads Mikkelsen playing Hannibal can be found above). I’ve read the books too, but they aren’t my favorite since I’m a more YA reader girl. As of the start of this month, my new all time favorite book (next to Nova Ren Suma’s IMAGINARY GIRL of course) is BONES & ALL by Camille DeAngelis. What do these two things have in common?

You guessed it! Cannibalism. We all know the story of Hannibal Lecter—the sophisticated man who just so happens to kill people and then eat them (this is a bad thing to do, just to clarify that too). BONES & ALL is a coming-of-age YA about a girl named Maren who also just so happens to eat people.

Maren and Hannibal couldn’t be more different, and that’s another reason I love both. It’s two different sorts of cannibal stories. Hannibal is remorseless and eats people in the ultimate form of dominance. ‘Cause, you know, there is nothing that asserts your alpha-ness more than eating people, apparently (at least that’s what he says).

But with Maren, it’s not something she can control. If someone is too kind to her, too affectionate, then she eats them—bones and all. It’s like a trance she goes into, and she can’t stop it, no matter how much she might wish she could. Here’s the blurb:

Maren Yearly doesn’t just break hearts, she devours them.

Since she was a baby, Maren has had what you might call “an issue” with affection. Anytime someone cares for her too much, she can’t seem to stop herself from eating them. Abandoned by her mother at the age of 16, Maren goes looking for the father she has never known, but finds more than she bargained for along the way.

Faced with love, fellow eaters, and enemies for the first time in her life, Maren realizes she isn’t just looking for her father, she is looking for herself. The real question is, will she like the girl she finds?

I know that sounds a bit strange (okay, more than a bit), but Camille DeAngelis is a remarkable writer. She makes this sort of ridiculous sounding premise seem so real that it’s hard to believe there aren’t people like Maren out there in the world. I cannot recommend this book enough. 

If you are a fan of HANNIBAL, then you’ll love BONES & ALL. Trust me.

So what about you? Are you a Fannibal like me? Have you read BONES & ALL?