bookheaven | Anthony Bourdain's Hungry Ghosts

Anthony Bourdain's Hungry Ghosts by Anthony Bourdain

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had no idea that Anthony Bourdain was also an author until I stumbled across this in the library. I'm less surprised to see that in his chef travels that he fell in love with Japan and their folklore/monsters and a lot of that comes out to play here and not just in the title.

This team up of Bourdain and Joel Rose takes this idea of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, a samurai game of telling horror tales in a room of 100 candles vs the campfire but mostly with the same idea: scare the crap out of your friends.

It's a neat idea. While most of the tales are Japanese in origin, there's a few from Europe too told in this as a Russian billionaire (most likely criminal) brings together a bunch of chefs and invites them to play the game with his guests.

While the stories aren't bad, none of them are actually that scary. It was more gross out than frightening. Lots of blood, swears and some nudity. (Also here's your reminder that parts of the world still eats horses, that's an important reminder). I'm glad I read it but I'm also glad I got it at a library vs my own dime. That said, I also learned in the author's notes that Anthony had written a mystery series I didn't know about so I'm going looking for that.

View all my reviews