A Carnivore's Inquiry

Rating:
Summary: Weak, Pretentious, and Unresolved
Review: This novel employs weak and/or untenable character motivation to carry a ridiculous plot that presents itself as a "novel of ideas" but is in reality a pastiche of solipsistic ramblings and cullings from secondary sources. As a novel of suspence, the narrative leaves loose ends and holes at nearly every turn, and the closure is so tepid I couldn't believe the diting could be so careless--one is led to think this "plot" is leading up to a climax, when instead what we get isn't even anticlimactic.

Rating:
Summary: a brilliant tale with a huge payoff
Review: what has been created by sabina murray here is not a typical cannibal horror novel; rather, by constructing a story of carefully constructed words, literate imagery, and a paced and controlled plot structure, "a carnivore's inquiry" is actually a high-end literary work with a grotesquely graphic centerpoint: cannibalism.
i can see how many feel the book is too slow, or perhaps not graphic enough, in the same way watching a psychological thriller won't offer the same payoff to someone expecting a slasher film. be assured: pour over this work. drink the language, and you'll find your mind becomes a haunted world in sabina murray's hands.