BOOK REVIEW: The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray @berkleypub #thecareandfeedingofravenouslyhungrygirls #bookbestiescareandfeeding #bookbestieapproved

A dark portrayal of the dysfunction of families, this book touches on many important but difficult subjects. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray is the sort of book that resonates the most in the quiet aftermath of the story than it does while reading it, for me. In a good way! I found this to be a book that stayed in my thoughts as I mulled over the unraveling of this family. As it is in life, the unraveling often starts long before it is apparent, and I thought Gray did a magnificent job of showing that.

About the Book

The Mothers meets An American Marriage in this dazzling debut novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you.

The Butler family has had their share of trials—as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest—but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives.

Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened.

As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister’s teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is important.

Reflection

When I say the unraveling of this family happens long before anyone noticed it, I mean that there is the “catalyst” for the story in the book, and the deep roots of dysfunction that emerge through the story. The story seems to begin with one of the Butler siblings Althea being arrested for defrauding community members. This sets off a chain of events, such as Viola’s re-surfacing eating disorder, Lillian’s struggles to stay strong for Althea’s daughters, and Joe’s re-emergence in the lived of his sisters.

But as you read, there is certainly a lot more to this story. How did Althea and her husband Proctor (who is a quietly outstanding character that is heard through epistolary communication to Althea in prison) end up in the situation they are in, arrested and bringing shame on their family? And why was Joe sent away so many years ago? There’s so much to learn about these siblings, and the things that happened in their past, both with eachother and with the parents or lack thereof in their lives. I don’t want to spoil any of the backstory but it is probably the piece of the story I thought about the most after I finished the book.

I read an interview with Anissa Gray where she talked about how this book came together. It started as a story focused on Viola, one of the Butler siblings who is gay and struggling with her relationship with her partner Eva, and also with an eating disorder despite her work with patients struggling with similar issues. Gray herself has a lot of connections to Viola, and to me Viola felt like the central character—so haunted and well-developed. Gray did a fantastic job showing the disordered eating in a very raw and difficult to read way. Later she felt like the story needed to be more about the broader issues that contributed to Viola and the other characters.

Lillian had a very compelling story as well. Though at first she seemed like the quietest voice of the sisters, the one who was holding things together, we later learn a bit more about Lillian. Why she is the quietest voice, what she went through, and why she has such a strong desire to protect Althea and Proctor’s daughters and help them through this tough time.

I would say that this book is about family dysfunction and the bonds that tether them together through the worst of times. It’s hard to say this is an uplifting book, but I did find hope and a bit of closure for the characters at the end. And more than anything, this is a book that is uncomfortable to read, and that is often why it is such an important story to read. There is nothing over-dramatized. It is an authentic story of a family in a sea of families that are struggling to make it through.

Thank you to Berkley for my copy. Opinions are my own. I read this with the book besties, and I hope you check out their reviews:

Berit at Audio Killed the Bookmark
Holly at Dressed to Read
Jennifer at Tarheel Reader
Kendall on Goodreads