Loved the introduction to the book since it set me up for what was to follow. In this anthology, the stories fit in nicely with the theme and "Candy Girl" was a nice way to start off really using it to emphasize the darker appetite of a woman especially when a man tries to pull something over on her.  Many of the authors were new to me and I will definitely be looking them up  to see what else was written by them. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley.

I have no clue how a collection of short stories was this hard to get through, but I really struggled with this one. The introduction set things up for a lot of introspective, critical commentary on how food can be used as a metaphor for how women are treated in society. I really liked everything discussed in that introduction and I thought it drew some interesting comparisons I wouldn't have otherwise considered.

The stories however.... I think there were perhaps three that I actually enjoyed. The majority of them didn't reflect the purposeful nature of the introduction, didn't really have room to interpret much. They were just kind of there. While a few of the stories were good, the general writing quality for the majority was quite poor and all in all the whole thing felt like a waste of time.

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  

From the publisher, as I do not regurgitate the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it.


Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up To No Good is a horror anthology of dark fiction and darker appetites, edited by Octavia Cade. Containing 22 stories of “bad” women, and “good” women who just haven’t been caught yet, it features 22 fearless writers who identify as female, non-binary, or a marginalized sex or gender identity.

A Note From the Publisher:
CONTRIBUTORS: A. R. Henle, Alyssa Wong, Amelia Gorman, Anahita Eftekhari, Betsy Aoki, Caroline M. Yoachim, Catherynne M. Valente, Chikodili Emelumadu, Crystal Lynn Hilbert, D. A. Xiaolin Spires, Damien Angelica Walters, Erin Horáková, H. Pueyo, Jasmyne J. Harris, Joyce Chng, Katharine Duckett, Kathleen Alcalá, Kathryn McMahon, Penny Stirling, Rachael Sterling, Rem Wigmore, Sabrina Vourvoulias 

The only great thing about chicken pox at age 52 (and being a speed reader) is you can read and review four books a day..and this was an excellent book to have spent an hour or two (or many more on your side) with

This is a delightfully twisted, dark anthology of short stories that revolve around foodstuffs. Would I call it a FOOD book? No ... but as I follow the "Cooking, Food & Wine" section of #netgalley I stumbled upon this.  The stories are short but awesome and most of them made me want MORE from the authors who wrote these stories.   

Read it in one fell swoop (like me, the super-speed reader) or over time ... I imagine that you will love it as I did ... in fact, it is a #bookclubpick for one of my nine book clubs. (I get to pick the books and this is a must as it covers the scope of female, non-binary, or marginalized sex or gender identity writers.)

As always, I try to find a reason to not rate with stars as I love emojis (outside of their incessant use on Instagram and Twitter) so let's give it 👩👩👩👩👩


p.s., it is posted on two "different" books on Goodreads as I could not combine them.