The Hunger We Pass Down
by Jen Sookfong Lee
A horror story about ghosts, rage, and the trauma carried down through generations of women.
ARC Review
Publisher: Kensington Publishing
Out: September 30, 2025
What It’s About
This book is about multigenerational trauma that runs through a family’s female line. It begins with Gigi, a girl taken and used as a comfort woman by the Japanese during the war. Her story is filled with ghosts and violence, and it leaves scars that do not stop with her. Betty, Judy, Alice, and finally Luna each inherit the weight, whether through stories, silence, or the things they are forced to endure.
What Stuck With Me
The title could just as easily have been The Rage We Pass Down. That is what I felt on every page. Rage mixed with grief, with ghosts standing in for the violence that shaped this family.
I knew about Korean comfort women, but this book forced me to see how the women of different countries suffered this same horror. That realization stopped me. The history is terrifying on its own, but here it becomes part of a larger cycle of abuse, silence, and survival. Domestic violence. Incest. Rape. Alcoholism. The constant pressure to endure. The ghosts carried all of it.
What struck me most was how the horror never felt separate from the real. The supernatural was not an escape. It was a way of showing what was already unbearable. Historical and horror at the same time. So many gut punches, but more often steady revelations. Ah, there it is. This is what we inherit. This is what we carry.
It made me angry. It made me sad. And it made me think about what women are asked to survive.
Would I Recommend It?
Yes. It is violent and difficult, but it is also important. If you want to see how horror can speak to trauma and what passes from mother to daughter, this book is worth reading.
For context: estimates suggest up to 200,000 women were forced into sexual slavery as “comfort women” during WWII. The great majority were from Korea, but women from China, Taiwan, and other parts of Asia, including Japan and Dutch nationals in Indonesia, were also involved (Britannica). Today, an estimated 736 million women, almost one in three worldwide, have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lives (UN Women).
Thank you Kensington Publishing and NetGalley for the early read.
Where to Find It
📘 Buy on Amazon
📘 Buy on Bookshop.org
First time on Bookshop.org? Click for discount code
Also available via WorldCat to check your local library
If you liked this book you may also like:
What Hunger by Catherine Dang → (connect on rage, generational trauma, survival)
One Left: A Novel by Kim Soom →(connect on comfort women, historical trauma, silence and survival)
Reading in a World That Remembers Too Much
The Hunger We Pass Down is not a cozy escape. It’s a book to sit with when you want to face the weight of history and the shadows that families carry. You don’t need comfort so much as a space that lets you hold something heavy. A few things that might set the tone:
Simple ceramic tea cup, strong and grounding
Soft but oversized blanket, the kind that feels more like armor
Notebook and pen to catch the lines you can’t stop thinking about
Dried fruit or salted nuts, something sharp to snack on while reading
Sometimes the right atmosphere does not make the book easier, but it makes it possible to stay with it.
Looking for your next read?
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