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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 2022, 304 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2023, 320 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Callum McLaughlin
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Sunyi Dean's The Book Eaters is "a darkly sweet pastry of a book about family, betrayal, and the lengths we go to for the ones we love. A delicious modern fairy tale." - Christopher Buehlman, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author.
Truth is found between the stories we're fed and the stories we hunger for.
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.
1
DEVON BY DAY
PRESENT DAY
These days, Devon only bought three things from the shops: books, booze, and Sensitive Care skin cream. The books she ate, the booze kept her sane, and the lotion was for Cai, her son. He suffered occasionally from eczema, especially in winter.
There were no books in this convenience store, only rows of garish magazines. Not to her taste, and anyway she had enough books to eat at home. Her gaze skipped across the soft porn, power tools, and home living publications down to the lowest strata, where children's magazines glowed pink and yellow.
Devon ran short, ragged nails across the covers. She thought about buying one for Cai, because he seemed to like reading that kind of thing at the moment, and decided against it. After tonight, his preferences might change.
She walked to the end of ...
The story is told in a non-linear fashion. This allows Dean to gradually flesh out the complexity of Devon's character and moral standing as she wrestles with the guilt of finding humans for her son to feed upon. As we gain greater insight into her past, her actions and her motives, one of the book's central concerns comes into play: Is it okay for a parent to do bad things if it's for the good of their child? From certain perspectives, it would be easy to view Devon as a monster, but the more we see of the corrupt, sexist regime she has been living under, the easier it becomes to consider the system itself the real monster, and to root for Devon to escape it, no matter the cost...continued
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(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestseller of The Starless Crown
Innovative, unique, poignant, and told with a voice as original as the story itself. I finished this novel in that one sitting, yet I'll be pondering it for a long time to come. This is the debut of a new master of the modern fantasy. Don't miss it. Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six
Raw and imaginative, this gritty, gothic anti-fairytale knows the truth: love will make a villain out of anyone. V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue
I devoured this.The protagonist in Sunyi Dean's novel The Book Eaters repeatedly finds herself compelled to carry out cruel acts against others in order to protect her young son. This moral dilemma is central to the character's development and forces readers to consider a difficult question: If a parent does bad things for the good of their child, can the ends ever justify the means? This is a fascinating topic sure to inspire debate, which is why authors have often been drawn to tackle it. Here are some other examples of books that explore moral dilemmas related to parenthood.
In My Name Is Monster by Katie Hale, our main character has survived alone for years in a world decimated by disease. Her existence is turned upside down when she finds ...
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