The Hunger is a historical fiction horror story following the infamous Donner Party during their 1846 attempt to reach California. Their whole journey is peppered with continued misfortunes such as depleted rations, interpersonal conflicts, inhospitable weather conditions, and the disappearances and deaths of some of the members. To top it all off, there's a growing sense of evil that surrounds the party as they dwindle in numbers and strength. Are the shadows that flit through the forest in the night simply a hungry pack of wolves, or are they something more sinister and perhaps supernatural?
I liked this book while I was reading it. I really liked it when I finished it. And the longer I sit and let the story percolate in my brain, the more I really really love it. This story ended up not being exactly what I thought it would be but in the best possible way. What I was expecting was a book that really focused in on the winter and the cannibalism/survival elements that most people know about the Donner Party. I was expecting a ton more gore or on-the-page violence and for the supernatural element to be either a figment of the characters' imaginations or super visible and integral to the story. What I got instead, was a quietly horrifying story that centers mostly on what humanity and civilization mean and how quickly those lines in the sand can be crossed when survival is on the line. Explorations of humanity like this are my all-time favorite theme to explore and is the main reason why I love psychological thrillers so much. I'm immensely fascinated by how far humans can be pushed and the sheer horrific actions they can take against their fellow humans for various reasons. If you were expecting this to be a book where the party bands together in solidarity to fight supernatural creatures in the woods, this is not that book.
For basically the first 75% of the book it is pretty straight up historical fiction following the Donner Party as they make the move West in their wagon train. There are some hints at supernatural elements but they are often written off as just Native American stories or figments of imagination. However, the supernatural elements really come into full swing at the last 25% where we learn from multiple perspectives the truths behind the stories and rumors. The horror elements are consistently ramping up throughout the story as tension, stress, and bad luck plague the travelers. I'm not usually a big reader of historical fiction because I find a lot of times that the stories feel either overly restricted by needing to match the real events or that the stories rely too heavily on the shock factor that the events really happened. I first learned about the Donner Party in 6th grade and was fascinated that they resorted to cannibalism for survival. I think that situation is so far removed for most modern-day readers that if this was a 100% faithful retelling of the completely true events, it still would have been interesting for many readers. However, I'm so thrilled that Katsu went further and took some creative liberties with the story. In the note in the back of the book, Katsu states that "names, locations, and dates have remained but much else has been changed to fit the story". The best way I can describe it is that this story has a really solid foundation in facts of what happened and then Katsu gives some extra creative flair on top. This way, even when the supernatural/horror elements are really ramped up in the last 25%, they are still completely grounded in reality which makes them more horrifying (in my opinion). There are no aliens coming down and abducting the Donner Party, for example. I could see some people making the argument that the only people who interact with the supernatural elements in the story are either sick, hallucinating, or are otherwise mentally unstable so maybe, just maybe, there isn't any supernatural element to this at all.
What I found really interesting was the balance between outside and inside threats woven throughout the story. At the start of the story, there are the stereotypical tales of some of the Native American tribes sacrificing people or attacking the white settlers as they pass through. However, we are shown through multiple interactions that the Native Americans in the area are wary of the settlers but are not outwardly hostile. In fact, the main threats come from inside the wagon train community. There are some members of the party who wish to talk to the tribes and learn from them, but most of the members are either actively hostile and racist toward them or at the very least heavily prejudiced. This tension was highlighted time and time again when Native Americans were shown to be helpful to the white settlers but the settlers themselves couldn't see past their own racist ideas so as soon as something went awry, they were blaming the Native Americans even if a more rational explanation was that someone in their own party was responsible. Katsu gives an explanation in the note at the end of the book that she was very intentional with balancing the general mindset of the times from the settlers with thoughtful and balanced representation from the Native American side. I think evaluating this idea of 'us' vs 'them' is always really interesting, but especially so in times of extreme stress. I attended a guest lecture in college about horror movies and the talk revolved around the idea that the horror genre acts as a mirror for the fears in society at that time and gives society a way to explore and evaluate different outcomes of that fear. Now I'm not sure if Katsu intended this book to be looked at as any sort of political or societal commentary but it was published in 2018 and as a reader in 2021, it is hard to separate the events of the past 4 years and the current climate from the similarities I saw presented in the book. Once the sort of 'origin story' of the supernatural elements of the book are revealed this us vs them discussion and exploration takes on a new depth and I was in awe at how well balanced and nuanced the reveals were.
My least favorite part of reading this book most likely stems from me not being a historical fiction reader and it was that I could not read this book for long periods of time. For some background, I've been a reader since childhood and I was an English major in college so I've gotten very good at reading quickly while still understanding what I've read. Thanks to this skill, I can regularly finish a 300 page book in an afternoon. For a more character-driven story, I average 100 pages an hour. For a more plot-driven story, that number drops to about 60 pages an hour. The version of The Hunger I read on my tablet was 373 pages so this book should have taken me somewhere between 3.75 and 6.21 hours to read (so, basically, a nice weekend afternoon). I also prefer to read my books in as few sittings as possible because I like to completely immerse myself in the story. For this story, however, I couldn't read this book for more than an hour at a time and it took me 10 days to finish (so about 10 hours of reading). Now, this isn't because the book was overly complicated or the writing was dry - quite the opposite, actually. Katsu packed in so much information and so many characters and character relations that my brain simply could not take in any more information after about an hour. For that hour of reading, I was completely engrossed in the story and I hung on every word, but I would quickly reach my mental limit and had to put the book down for at least a few hours to let all the new information sink in. Now this might not be a detriment for readers who only read in short bursts anyway but this was the first book in a long time that I had to put down because of the actual story and not because it was time to get dinner started. I've found this sort of pattern to be true with the few other historical fiction books I've read in the past, but most of those other ones also didn't hold my interest so I would put them down after a bit and found myself never picking them back up. The Hunger was a book that I wanted so badly to cuddle up on the couch with and get lost in and I was frustrated that I had to keep putting it down when I wanted to just keep reading.
I've said it before in other reviews, but I'm 100% a character-driven reader and Katsu is masterful at characters in this story. We bounce between multiple characters in the party as well as back and forth in time. Plus, there are multiple other characters who we see a lot even if we are never directly following them. There were about 90 members in the Donner Party so Katsu had a lot of characters and interpersonal relationships to build (we obviously don't get introduced to all 90 characters, but still). Now despite being a character-driven reader, I'm absolutely horrible with remembering names. If a story has two characters with names that start with the same letter, I'm most likely going to get them confused (I'm horrible with names in real life as well). Of all the different characters we interacted with, by the end of the book I could only recall 3 of them by name. However, I could still keep track of all the different relationships and connections between characters which I find more important in the long run. Katsu also did a great job at reminding the reader of character relationships when a character we hadn't seen in a while popped up on the page. Just a little reminder like "her daughter" or "his employee" was enough to trigger my memory so I had the context I needed for the upcoming chapter. Katsu also develops really extensive backstories for the characters that we learn as the book progresses which helps explain some of their actions in the present situation. These backstories also serve to show the reader that none of the people on this wagon train are perfect, a lot of them are escaping their pasts with this move to California. Getting to know these characters in such detail when you know what they're eventually going to endure is heartbreaking and I found myself rooting for them despite knowing what was going to happen.
Finally, I want to talk about the writing style which, in my opinion, can really make or break a historical fiction book. I found the writing style to be the perfect balance of literary flowery language and matter of fact bluntness and this contrast in the language worked perfectly with the subject matter. It was really interesting to see how the beauty and awe of the landscape descriptions contrasted with the harsh realities of life in a wagon train. The writing was very engaging which is exactly what I, personally, need in order to enjoy a historical fiction. Then, in the later parts of the books where the horror comes into the forefront, the writing isn't overly descriptive of the events which makes it almost more horrific. We were back to more matter of fact descriptions which left the reader no wiggle room for misunderstanding the enormity of what was happening. By the end, the characters were facing a brutal truth of the need to survive and the writing didn't shy away from that fact which I really liked. As I said before, we don't see a lot of detailed gore on page but it is explicitly discussed multiple times. I think this story does such a good job playing the majesty of the idealized wagon train experience with the harsh realities of the actual journey and the writing style is a big factor in that for me.
Overall, this was a fantastic read even if it wasn't exactly what I was expecting when I started. Great character development, horror elements were used expertly and not overdone, good balance between factual historical fiction and more flowery story. I had to slow down my reading to make sure I could absorb all the information that was on the page, but I always wanted to come back after I put the book down.
373 pages.
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