Dirty Hungry Homosexuals: ‘The Starving Saints’ starves readers of a satisfying ending

In “Dirty Hungry Homosexuals,” columnist Dayanara Yepez Ramirez ’28 reviews gothic, horror literature that spotlights queer women.

Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.

I have just finished “The Starving Saints” and nothing feels real anymore. Is the sky blue? Is hiring an Etsy witch to get someone to fall in love with me ethical? Am I actually a lesbian? I simply do not know anything anymore. My brain feels like an entity separate from myself. 

Nevertheless, I will try to describe the discombobulating journey that is Caitlin Starling’s dark fantasy novel. If you’re in the mood for mind-boggling — even after your midterms and excruciatingly long papers — please, try to follow along. 

We begin with our protagonist, Phosyne, trapped in Aymar Castle by an ongoing siege. With the conflict six months deep, Phosyne calculates that in 15 days, no food will remain. While many of the castle dwellers are forced to live in confined spaces, Phosyne’s solution to the lack of clean water — that is, providing her own blood to the starving community — grants her the luxury of her own room. However, the king now daunts her with the impossible task of fixing the lack of food, eventually sending one of his most honored knights, a woman named Ser Voyne, to watch over Phosyne. 

As both time and food are about to run out, four saintly figures to whom the people had been praying arrive at the castle. How they materialized remains a mystery, but the people do not question it as the saints present them with food, even though the group had arrived empty handed. As the masses fall under the saints’ spell, only Phosyne and Treila — a girl who seeks revenge on Ser Voyne for killing her mother — remain stable-minded, seeking a way to escape or defeat the saints’ hold.

The beginning of this novel had potential. Phosyne seemed like the typical frazzled mad genius character for whom I had empathy, given the king’s ludicrous requests. I was also interested to see how Ser Voyne’s character would progress — how someone so loyal and strong would work to keep the peace as the people descended into madness. Particularly, given Ser Voyne and Phosyne’s mutual hatred for each other, I was hoping to see an enemies-to-lovers trope come into play, especially when presented with lines that left me giggling, such as: “‘I thought,’ Phosyne says, slowly, ‘that you might not mind my death.’ Voyne scowls. ‘You are mine to care for,’ [Voyne] says, too quickly.”

The saints’ arrival is depicted in a sudden and dizzying manner, conveying both the ecstasy of certain characters and terror of others, and adding a sense of eeriness to an already crumbling society. Both Phosyne and Treila know instantly the saints are not to be trusted, refusing to eat the bizarre food that had left others enchanted. Tensions rise as Treila watches one of the saints plant crops, noting, “It looked like he was planting a fingernail. But that can’t be right. It grew like all the rest of them.” 

Unfortunately, this is when the book started losing me. At this point, Voyne practically becomes the lap dog of the lead saint, the Lady. Though her turn to faith speaks to her desperation regarding her inability to save anyone, erasing Voyne’s strength and ardor so quickly took away some of the excitement of seeing her grow. Furthermore, toward the end, the trio tumbles into an annoying cycle of falling for the Lady’s tricks, fighting to leave the castle, deciding they should try to save everyone… and then doing it all again. 

Starling might have intended this circular nature as a means for the reader to understand the madness the characters were enduring, but it came across as confusing. There is also the existence of magic in this world, which Phosyne possesses, and the mystery of what kind of monsters the saints are. Neither aspect is ever fully explained.

While the book depicts the castle’s inhabitants resorting to cannibalism to survive, it all felt rather lacking because they faced consequences while the trio didn’t. Treila does lose a finger and an ear when she foolishly returns to the castle after having escaped. She also gets stabbed, but she survives through Phosyne kissing the wound — a rather Disney-like solution for what is meant to be a horrifying novel. Then, Ser Voyne dies and inexplicably comes back to life after getting stabbed by Treila, who had tried to save the knight earlier in the book but then works with Voyne after her revival.

There were definitely cool concepts in this book I was excited about. Sadly, with every flip of the page, I found myself feeling more disappointed than eager to see what was going to happen next. Nonetheless, if you need something to question other than how many years your coding assignment is going to slice off your life, then the confusing mystique of “The Starving Saints” is for you.

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