by Lucy Rose
- Horror
- LGBTQ+
- Canniablism
- Disturbing & Dark
I was gifted this book as a Secret Santa present by a dear friend who had heard about it and thought it sounded like “a bit of me”. Now, I do love this friend dearly, but being described as “lesbian cannibalism” is an interesting choice, and I’m not entirely sure what that says about me…
Jokes aside, I was genuinely curious about this book. I went into it expecting some kind of feminist folklore story, but that really wasn’t how I felt coming out of it.
Did the opening chapter grab my attention? The opening page certainly did. The first line is literally: “On my fourth birthday, I plucked six severed fingers from the shower drain.” So yes, that got my attention!
The book itself is an easy read, but I found it incredibly repetitive and, at times, strangely boring. The same things happen over and over, with the pace getting quicker towards the ending, yet the whole novel remained very predictable.
What it does achieve, however, is being dark and disturbing from beginning to end. Perhaps the most disturbing element is experiencing all of this through the eyes of a little girl, roughly seven to fourteen years old, for whom cannibalism is simply a completely normal part of life.
I really struggled with this book, and I’m still trying to understand the huge fanfare around it. It is undeniably dark and deliberately disturbing, but at times it left me questioning the author, and perhaps even the people who love this story. Are you alright? I’m not judging… but maybe a little.
The book is marketed as folklore, and while there are a few smaller stories woven throughout, they didn’t feel like much of a focus and, in some places, felt almost irrelevant to the main story.
Ultimately, I found this a difficult book to recommend. It’s so disturbing that I’m not sure I actually want the people I love to read it! I’ll probably take it to one of my book clubs for everyone to debate, but beyond that, it won’t be making its way into the hands of anyone I care about.
If you do want to read The Lamb, go in warned: this book is disturbing.
