Season to Taste or How to Eat Your Husband

by Natalie Young

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

As most people know, I love a good transgressive novel and Season to Taste or How to Eat Your Husband sounds like the type of book I was going to enjoy. The premise is simple; after thirty years of marriage Lizzie Prain has had enough. A single blow with the shovel caves his head in and now she is free but she also has to dispose of his body. Her method appealed to her practical side; she was going to eat him.

The book sounds deliciously macabre and to some extent there are some dark moments but there was something incredibly wrong with this novel. Season to Taste is writing in two styles. Firstly you have the overall story but playing alongside of the plot is little notes Lizzie writes to herself, to remind her of what needs to be done. This serves as a psychological insight into her life as well as a shopping list and possible recipe ideas.

The major problem I had with this novel was with the protagonist. I could not tell if she was a sociopath that showed no remorse or her psyche was over looked. She felt rather flat overall; I wanted to believe that Lizzie was dead inside from a crippling marriage but every part of her felt fake and emotionless. This made the book rather dull and I found myself losing interest in the character and the novel really quickly.

Putting aside the dark nature of Season to Taste, I want to quickly touch on what this book was trying to explore. Lizzie Prain is fifty-three years old and had married for thirty years; she would not have known much of a life outside of childhood and marriage. This novel tries to explore the concept of new beginnings, life after marriage and finding yourself. This might have been effective if my interest was held. I feel like the remorse of killing her husband could have played a part in the novel; it would have been an interesting avenue to explore. The ideal of freedom, life after a bad marriage but the guilt that eats away at her; I feel like this would have made for a better read.

Killing her husband and eating him served more of a metaphor but it really didn’t work. New beginnings can be a good topic to write about and if you took out the killing and eating of her husband it might have worked. Granted I might not have picked up the book in that case; I think the author was on the right track but her attempt to go for the shock value didn’t pay off. Going for a light and humorous story doesn’t work when you are also try to be gruesome and dark at the same time. There are plenty of other novels that explore the psychology of a killer or sociopath but this isn’t one of them.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2014/05/22/season-to-taste-by-natalie-young/