Season To Taste...Or How To Eat Your Husband by Natalie Young

Well my oh my hasn't this month just flown by! Already two weeks into May and I don't know where the time has gone. I have been super busy as well just to add to the chaos that is work, so apologies for the delay for the latest review. This has not been helped by reading two novels that have been pretty darn rubbish to say the least. So I shall plough forward with one that has meant my blogging standard. Also the one I am reading at the moment has been potentially one of my favourite books of all time so watch this space...

Today's review looks at Season To Taste or How To Eat Your Husband. The brutal reality of the title of the novel hits you straight in the face on the first page as we learn that Lizzie, our female protagonist, has murdered her husband. No messing about, Natalie Young gives us the story right away. In a way, you may think this may ruin the rest of the story, but it is learning about her past and the unique way she begins to dispose of his body, that is the true story here. That was for me what made it so unique, having the main event so early on and seeing the reasons why after it has happened.

Now Lizzie goes on to chop her husband up into bits and store him in the freezer. There is something so methodical to her practice, and her total disregard for the seriousness of what she is doing seems extremely robotic. She fits into the typical domestic housewife role, even creating a step- by- step list littered throughout the novel, but just with an extremely dark twist. I must warn you that there are some graphic moments during the cooking and consuming of her husband. The worst bit for me, which surprisingly was not his cock and balls, but when she eats his hand. I found myself looking down at my own hand on the train and feeling rather nauseous. People must have thought I was a right freak looking at my hand like that. I just kept picturing a chicken wing.

To be fair to Lizzie, she cooks the parts of him in possibly the tastiest ways you could maybe think of, just the only problem being its human flesh she is using. But this just adds to her methodical ways. But this endless consumption methaphor, which Young uses to highlight how Lizzie's pre- murder life was consumed by her lazy husband and dead end marriage. It is very clever, if not sometimes vomit inducing.

Another famous literary cannibal

The housewife role is added to more in a familiar setting, well familiar for me anywhere. Set in a remote cottage in leafy Surrey, where I happen to reside, I could feel myself in the places where she speaks of. This, for me, added an extra isolated dimension, just as to how much goes on behind closed doors, especially in supposedly sleepy towns. There is an mention of my home town too, holler out to Weybridge on page 49!

So if you enjoy your complicated female led books, then I highly recommend this book. Young's clever style of writing, including the brilliant how to guide, will get you in the mood for some very dark moments. Just ensure you have a strong stomach, some parts are pretty hard to read through. Just do what I did, picture a Nando's and not your own chubby, hairy hand.

Season To Taste... Or How To Eat Your Husband by Natalie Young is published by Headline books in the UK.