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“I learned quickly that my wants and needs were unwelcome, too great for any reasonable person to fulfill, and in time I came to agree with her. I was too much, too loud, too emotional, too clumsy, too self-involved. My existence was a burden to all involved with it, and I resolved to never make any demand if I could help it.”  — “Hungerstone,” by Kat Dunn

After a wonderful conversation with Books on the Bosque’s book club last month, I thought I’d introduce you to “Hungerstone,” a visceral, atmospheric exploration of desire, power and transformation. Kat Dunn delivers a novel that feels both hauntingly old and modern.

At first glance, “Hungerstone” appears to follow the familiar blueprint of gothic fiction: an isolated estate, a young woman caught in suffocating circumstances, and a presence that feels both dangerous and seductive. However, Dunn quickly diverts expectations. Her heroine is not merely a victim of the shadows around her; she is shaped by them, sharpened by them, and eventually forced to decide what she is willing to become in order to survive.

Dunn grounds the novel in the Victorian Era constraints placed on women, particularly within rigid social hierarchies, with quotes like, “To be a woman is a horror I can little comprehend.” Marriage, reputation, obedience and bodily autonomy loom large. The horror in “Hungerstone” is not confined to the supernatural, it seeps from the everyday realities of control and entitlement. The “hunger” at the center of the story operates on multiple levels: physical, emotional, erotic and societal. It becomes a metaphor for everything women are taught to suppress.

The novel also explores the setting as a character. The estate itself feels like a living organism, feeding off those who inhabit it. Wealth does not provide safety; it reinforces imbalance. Dunn skillfully portrays how privilege and confinement can coexist, particularly for women whose comfort is conditional and whose security is never truly their own.

What makes “Hungerstone” stand out beyond a conventional gothic is its refusal to moralize female desire. Dunn does not punish her protagonist for wanting more, for craving freedom, for feeling anger. Instead, she interrogates why that desire is labeled monstrous in the first place. Transformation in this novel is not simply a horror spectacle, it is reclamation. Becoming “monstrous” reads less as corruption and more as awakening. “I want; it is a new and thrilling revelation. I can’t want, and it will not destroy me.”

Dunn’s writing is immersive and sensory, thick with atmosphere. The setting feels damp and claustrophobic, the emotional tension coiled tight. Readers are asked to sit with discomfort, the slow burn of resentment, the ache of longing, and the sharp edge of female rage. Yet amid the darkness, there is clarity. There is power in naming one’s hunger.

Ultimately, “Hungerstone” is an example of what happens when suppressed desire refuses to stay buried. It challenges the notion that goodness requires self-denial and instead argues that survival may demand transformation. For readers drawn to feminist horror and morally complicated women, it offers both catharsis and confrontation.

By placing a woman’s appetite, literal and figurative, at the center of its narrative, Dunn delivers a novel that is unsettling, intimate and fiercely resonant. “Hungerstone” is not simply a story about monsters. It asks who defines them and who benefits from that definition.

Desiree Condit is the co-owner, store manager and web designer of Books on the Bosque, located at 6261 Riverside Plaza Lane, Suite A-2, or at .