The Ones Who Come Back Hungry by Amelinda Bérubé (review)

Reviewed by: The Ones Who Come Back Hungry by Amelinda Bérubé Kate Quealy-Gainer Bérubé, Amelinda The Ones Who Come Back Hungry. Sourcebooks Fire, 2024 368p Paper ed. ISBN 9781728290607 11. 99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 8-12 After the sudden death of her beautiful, accomplished sister, high school junior Jo is bereft, blaming herself for resentfully sulking in her room while, unknown to her, Audrey was feverish and struggling to breathe just down the hall. A week after the burial, however, Jo finds Audrey in the family shed—cold to the touch, not breathing, but fully able to speak and move. Jo is thrilled with Audrey's return, and she's willing to do anything to keep Audrey with her, even if it means allowing her sister to feed on her blood. As Jo searches for answers about Audrey's new condition in folklore and urban legends, Audrey is turning into the worst part of herself, cruel, needy, and soon violently demanding what Jo might finally be unwilling to give. There are plenty of descriptions of bloody feasting, gruesome vivisections, and infected wounds to satiate hungry horror fans, but this is also an atmospheric, deeply contemplative tale about a toxic sibling bond that has perpetually allowed one to flourish at the cost of the other. Jo always played second fiddle to Audrey in life, with her very being seeming to be an inconvenience to their mother, and Audrey's bad moods were whiplash-fast and often struck at Jo the hardest. Audrey therefore comes off as mostly unsympathetic, but readerly investment is surely earned by Jo's devotion to her, which is palpable, if misguided. Bérubé mines the chill factor of a wintry, icy landscape for maximum tension, creating scenes that have both a sense of claustrophobia and endless, unknowable terror; nowhere is safe, not the freezing shed where Audrey demands Jo's blood, nor the warm indoors where Audrey's body begins to quickly bloat and decay. Pair with Sim's We Shall Be Monsters, reviewed below, for a terrifying look at how far some sisters will go for each other. Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois