I have mixed feelings about this week’s #spellbooksaturday, but overall enjoyed…
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
[Content warnings: violence, domestic abuse, etc.]
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book’s content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories. But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.
[source: bookshop.org]
As someone with an endless TBR list, the premise of being able to consume and retain a book positively thrilled me, and author Sunyi Dean gives wonderful detail about the mechanics. Dean’s finest moments, though, are those in which she questions the ways in which love can alternately shackle and uplift us, be a curse or a gift. Though the pacing of the overall novel felt uneven, the final act was generally satisfying. Elements reminded me almost of The Lamb, and I can imagine fans of Lucy Rose will enjoy The Book Eaters as well.
Have you read The Book Eaters? What were your thoughts? Share in the comments!
I have a Bookshop.org list of #spellbooksaturday features for folks to peruse, but in the spirit of transparency, as a Bookshop.org affiliate, I receive a small percentage of book sales purchased through my links. If you find that off-putting, feel free to shop directly through bookshop.org or your own local bookseller! My only goal here is to resist Amazon and the mega-rich.
DID YOU ENJOY THIS SPELLBOOK SATURDAY FEATURE? SHOP THE LIST ON BOOKSHOP.ORG, OR CHECK OUT SOME MORE READING RECOMMENDATIONS…
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