This review first appeared in Booklist on April 1, 2025.
Brielle Petitfour is hungry—for success, naturally. She’s been working hard to turn her passion for cooking into a distinguished, profitable venture, hoping to finally give her ailing, selfless mother the life she rightfully deserves. For power, too: working at a restaurant catering to the uber-rich, she’s been around it long enough to know how many doors it could open for her and her struggling family. And, of course, being part zombie, she’s hungry for flesh, but she’s far too ambitious to let that particular urge dictate her life. All these cravings come together one fateful summer when Brielle finds herself thrust into la haute société, the world she’s only ever glimpsed from the outside. Inside the belly of the beast, she finds something incredibly sinister and resolves to take it down, one lurid dish at a time. Infused with Haitian folklore, The Summer I Ate the Rich is a visceral exploration of class and race that will leave you craving justice. Serve alongside Jamison Shea’s I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me (2023).
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