Woman, Eating Summary
Claire Kohda

Claire Kohda's Woman, Eating follows Lydia, a young mixed-race vampire who moves to London to pursue art while placing her deteriorating mother in assisted living, struggling with hunger, identity, and her desperate desire to integrate into human society. Raised on shame and self-loathing by her mother—who was turned by a white British colonizer in Malaysia—Lydia initially sustains herself on pig's blood while working at an exploitative art gallery internship and navigating complex relationships with fellow artists. Her journey toward self-acceptance accelerates when she begins hunting independently, first consuming a duck's blood that grants her artistic confidence and social empowerment, breaking free from her mother's toxic influence. The novel culminates when rejection and sexual harassment push Lydia to embrace her predatory nature fully, killing her abuser and another man to consume human blood, which finally provides her with the cultural experiences and power she craved, though at the cost of her humanity and moral boundaries.