A moment in which the two images – the wicked fox and the amorous woman – no longer coincided, their edges separating like a deck of cards thrown on the floor. The grammatical difference between doing something and already having done it, between past, present, and future, is located outside the verb. This was a hazy yet electrifying story of an Italian woman grieving the loss of her twin brother, who moves to China and begins a toxic and intoxicating relationship with a sadistic woman.

The writing is beautiful and the way it talks about change and the correlation between food and eating and lustfull consumption, is just incredible. It was also longlisted for the Strega Award and for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2014. I tried to remember, but all that came to mind was a red cover and words crowding the page like ants.In the gloom of abandoned textile factories and dilapidated slaughter houses, the two discover an extreme dimension where biting, swallowing, and taking each other in are part of the erotic ritual. Towards the end, my initial disappointment had waned considerably and I had somehow warmed up a little to the story, but that did not mean I was ready for one of the most infuriating endings I have ever read. Esta es una historia de amor entre una profesora de italiano y Xu, una chica japonesa, que me ha hecho sufrir mucho.

She’s ripe for some kind of breakdown, and Xu comes along at just the right (or wrong) time, almost demanding what quickly becomes an unequal relationship. Leaving the glossy core behind, the two women move through poorer, dirtier areas, visiting the hidden relics of the city beneath, or adjacent to, the shiny modern metropolis.Now the buildings contained newspaper offices, multinational corporations, TV stations – economic paradise. You do things for other people, you suppress parts of your personality, and then no one remembers when you came into the world. Blue Hunger is a most vibrant novel about lust: beautifully written and full of sensuous images, Viola Di Grado's book is a powerful literary journey into food and sex and the city. My favourite stories were ‘bones’ and ‘scab’ as the metaphors and words used to describe protagonist’s pain and numbness were intricate to say the least. What I definitely did not enjoy was witnessing the development of a very unhealthy relationship between the protagonist and Xu, the enigmatic local Shanghai young woman.