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netthauser's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, and Misogyny
mourningstarr's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
The plot was really intriguing, unfortunately it ended up falling flat for me. What I thought was going to be a cool read with a new kind of character ended up being just another boring book about a mother willing to do anything to save her kid 🙄🙄
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Infertility, Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail
halfbloodprincess_hogwarts's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
This was not my cup of tea. It's quite triggering and has a society that controls women reproductive rights. Solely, from my understanding, on sexual violence.
So I jumped from 32% of the audio to the end and was greatly disappointed with the ending. It leaves a dry cough of hope at the end that is 99.9% uncertain/may not succeed.
So I jumped from 32% of the audio to the end and was greatly disappointed with the ending. It leaves a dry cough of hope at the end that is 99.9% uncertain/may not succeed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infertility, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Alcohol
missindyrose's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Violence
Moderate: Death, Blood, and Alcohol
Minor: Child abuse and Pregnancy
upperjackpain's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Gun violence, Sexual violence, Violence, and Abandonment
Moderate: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Misogyny, Rape, Sexism, Blood, Trafficking, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Torture
keen's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Murder, and Pregnancy
Minor: Child abuse, Gun violence, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury
wearyreader's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
I’ll start with the positives: The writing style is great and there is a really well managed back and forth of timelines from what I’ve read so far. But, with that I still had to stop.
I DNF’d at 65 pages which is about 21% for the problematic similarities to Romani peoples. As far as I have read, these are what I’ve found.
This group of people are noted to not be human, that they must take extra care to appear human when being amongst people.
They used to be able to travel, but now they can’t because of paperwork issues. (They are undocumented, and they don’t report the birth of their kids, marriages, ext) [Page 3, talks about how our main character has no ID, passport, birth certificate, ext]. The families are noted to not do anything, just hang out where they live. Although some families differ, our main character’s family’s home is noted to be run down and not taken care of. The estate is overgrown and not worked. But it’s important to know they all have really nice, new cars.
The Book Eaters are many different families across Britain. (They used to travel more but can’t now because of the said lack of documentation) Their kids run around dirty, uneducated, and without any outside contact. Women are ‘rare’ and are treated like princesses. Women are only fed fairy tale books and books about compliance while boys are fed adventure stores and stories of valor and more educated texts. When they turn 18 they are dressed like princesses and immediately married off to another family.
They are married to a man (of any age) to produce a child. Once the child is born and give a few years, they are married off to another man to produce another child. After that child (unless they can produce a 3rd) they are allowed to retire at their home family and continue to just exist without further purpose.
Oh, and there’s still a dowry involved in this to entice the woman’s original family to comply with the forced birthing process.
When they are married off, the ‘knights’ ride motorcycles around a
limo to escort her to the new family in the style of a caravan.
But, the Book Eaters publicly are just people who live off the land and stick to themselves and are local legends. Should an outsider stumble upon them, they are drained of who they are/captured, and sent somewhere way far away without their family or loved ones knowing.
The Book Eaters are monsters. You are either born a book eater or born a dragon (someone who instead of eating human knowledge, must eat human experience aka brains). So you are either born ‘normal’ or a monster, inherently evil/with evil urges. These dragons get stripped of their freedoms and are then covered in tattoos which signify that they’re dangerous.
It is noted that indeed, their heritage is Romanian. Straight up.
Am I reading too much into this Maybe I am. But there is too much
intersectionality with the harmful stereotypes or Romani peoples that
it feels so blaringly obvious to me. Instead of the usually paranormal
media depiction of being Lycanthropes and Fortune Tellers, they’re indeed vampiric alien monsters.
As I mentioned, I have stopped reading here. I cannot review anymore than this. There are also more reviews here on Goodreads and other places that report that the book ends up being about not book eating but the family being a cult/cult-like activity. So, I will not be
continuing even more so.
Sadly, I believe this book will be in some subscription boxes so I feel for those who might not be prepared for it and for those who have no idea about the intersectionality of this.
I DNF’d at 65 pages which is about 21% for the problematic similarities to Romani peoples. As far as I have read, these are what I’ve found.
This group of people are noted to not be human, that they must take extra care to appear human when being amongst people.
They used to be able to travel, but now they can’t because of paperwork issues. (They are undocumented, and they don’t report the birth of their kids, marriages, ext) [Page 3, talks about how our main character has no ID, passport, birth certificate, ext]. The families are noted to not do anything, just hang out where they live. Although some families differ, our main character’s family’s home is noted to be run down and not taken care of. The estate is overgrown and not worked. But it’s important to know they all have really nice, new cars.
The Book Eaters are many different families across Britain. (They used to travel more but can’t now because of the said lack of documentation) Their kids run around dirty, uneducated, and without any outside contact. Women are ‘rare’ and are treated like princesses. Women are only fed fairy tale books and books about compliance while boys are fed adventure stores and stories of valor and more educated texts. When they turn 18 they are dressed like princesses and immediately married off to another family.
They are married to a man (of any age) to produce a child. Once the child is born and give a few years, they are married off to another man to produce another child. After that child (unless they can produce a 3rd) they are allowed to retire at their home family and continue to just exist without further purpose.
Oh, and there’s still a dowry involved in this to entice the woman’s original family to comply with the forced birthing process.
When they are married off, the ‘knights’ ride motorcycles around a
limo to escort her to the new family in the style of a caravan.
But, the Book Eaters publicly are just people who live off the land and stick to themselves and are local legends. Should an outsider stumble upon them, they are drained of who they are/captured, and sent somewhere way far away without their family or loved ones knowing.
The Book Eaters are monsters. You are either born a book eater or born a dragon (someone who instead of eating human knowledge, must eat human experience aka brains). So you are either born ‘normal’ or a monster, inherently evil/with evil urges. These dragons get stripped of their freedoms and are then covered in tattoos which signify that they’re dangerous.
It is noted that indeed, their heritage is Romanian. Straight up.
Am I reading too much into this Maybe I am. But there is too much
intersectionality with the harmful stereotypes or Romani peoples that
it feels so blaringly obvious to me. Instead of the usually paranormal
media depiction of being Lycanthropes and Fortune Tellers, they’re indeed vampiric alien monsters.
As I mentioned, I have stopped reading here. I cannot review anymore than this. There are also more reviews here on Goodreads and other places that report that the book ends up being about not book eating but the family being a cult/cult-like activity. So, I will not be
continuing even more so.
Sadly, I believe this book will be in some subscription boxes so I feel for those who might not be prepared for it and for those who have no idea about the intersectionality of this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Infertility, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Stalking, Murder, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Xenophobia, and Cultural appropriation
Minor: Alcoholism and Drug use
sarah984's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
If you remember that era in the early 2000s where everyone was making zombie media but it wasn't really cool anymore, so they were all sort of ashamed about it and like, "well MY creatures aren't zombies because they [one random gimmick; it's a fungus or whatever]," even though they totally are zombies - this is that but with vampires.
Even at the end I was totally unclear on how book eating was supposed to work. The characters' homes are full of intact books and they have fangs so I assumed they drained the book's "essence" or something, but later a character is putting ketchup on one, or soaking it in water to make it easier to eat. Book eating is always sort of elided, which is kind of funny because mind eating (a sort of mutation that some book eaters have that requires them to eat brains) is so vividly described on multiple occasions.
The characters all sound the same and half the book is characters describing events that have already happened to each other, so there isn't much suspense until right at the end. There is one problem that hangs over the characters for most of the runtime but then is IMMEDIATELY solved the second it actually comes up, which felt kind of pointless.
The romance is terrible; the characters barely talk and suddenly the kid is calling them girlfriends. This woman is the only one the main character really interacts with, which is sort of weird for a book billing itself as feminist. She looks at most other women with either pity or scorn. There is an extremely weird chapter where characters quote the dictionary definition of asexuality at each other that ends up being almost insulting, and the "I ruined a baby with my son's Autism Beam" bit was ridiculous.
I have no idea what the book was trying to say: parental love can be self destructive? Fairy tales destroy the imagination? The author really likes Tomb Raider and needs to make sure we know it?
Even at the end I was totally unclear on how book eating was supposed to work. The characters' homes are full of intact books and they have fangs so I assumed they drained the book's "essence" or something, but later a character is putting ketchup on one, or soaking it in water to make it easier to eat. Book eating is always sort of elided, which is kind of funny because mind eating (a sort of mutation that some book eaters have that requires them to eat brains) is so vividly described on multiple occasions.
The characters all sound the same and half the book is characters describing events that have already happened to each other, so there isn't much suspense until right at the end. There is one problem that hangs over the characters for most of the runtime but then is IMMEDIATELY solved the second it actually comes up, which felt kind of pointless.
The romance is terrible; the characters barely talk and suddenly the kid is calling them girlfriends. This woman is the only one the main character really interacts with, which is sort of weird for a book billing itself as feminist. She looks at most other women with either pity or scorn. There is an extremely weird chapter where characters quote the dictionary definition of asexuality at each other that ends up being almost insulting, and the "I ruined a baby with my son's Autism Beam" bit was ridiculous.
I have no idea what the book was trying to say: parental love can be self destructive? Fairy tales destroy the imagination? The author really likes Tomb Raider and needs to make sure we know it?
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Body horror, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Infertility, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death and Car accident
2treads's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Dean absolutely stuns with this enigmatically compelling and thrilling debut. Book eating comes to life within this story, incorporating the patriarchy at its worst. I love that we get a glimpse of Eater physiology and the different flavours of books, making this tale even more engrossing.
The Book Eaters do not know for sure where they come from, but they definitely have a grasp of what to do to survive and how to keep their species going. With women being born few and far between, the Families begin a contractual arrangement where the women are entered into 'advantageous' marriages until progeny is produced and if they are girls, gratitude and prestige follow, and then they are shuffled off to the next husband.
Devin grows up on fairy tales and flighty stories, nothing of substance that could engender a sense of self or the world, to keep her under the thumb of her family. But her first child fires a desire for more, for freedom, and she will do what it takes to be with her child.
The Book Eaters captivates as it winds back and forth between past, present, and history, creating a world that mirrors ours even as ingenious devices are crafted and used to tell not only of what a mother will do, but also of the maneuverings of families, knights, and the man who threatens their strength and goals. And with ease incorporates ideas of identity, sexuality, immigrant labour and exploitation, personhood, and queerness.
The Book Eaters do not know for sure where they come from, but they definitely have a grasp of what to do to survive and how to keep their species going. With women being born few and far between, the Families begin a contractual arrangement where the women are entered into 'advantageous' marriages until progeny is produced and if they are girls, gratitude and prestige follow, and then they are shuffled off to the next husband.
Devin grows up on fairy tales and flighty stories, nothing of substance that could engender a sense of self or the world, to keep her under the thumb of her family. But her first child fires a desire for more, for freedom, and she will do what it takes to be with her child.
The Book Eaters captivates as it winds back and forth between past, present, and history, creating a world that mirrors ours even as ingenious devices are crafted and used to tell not only of what a mother will do, but also of the maneuverings of families, knights, and the man who threatens their strength and goals. And with ease incorporates ideas of identity, sexuality, immigrant labour and exploitation, personhood, and queerness.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny
Moderate: Death, Physical abuse, Violence, and Murder
thewordsdevourer's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.75
the book eaters is a gripping, dark, somewhat disturbing, and imaginative book w/ a good execution - if slightly rushed end - but it's above all a reverse fairytale of sorts that details how a princess changes as a consequence of all the trials she's gone through.
it's a trip to witness devon evolving from a sheltered, naive child unbeknownst of the world's dangerous reality to a harrowed woman who makes tough choices and willing to do anything to protect her child. how the world and the system oppresses and commodifies her, and how she grows into herself to game and turn against them.
what i like most abt the book is its worldbuilding, how dean takes advantage of the 'eating books' idea oft fantasized by book lovers and turns it into this dark, gripping, yet understandable story propelled by its own rules, culture, politics and machinations that mirror the real world in many aspects. how it could be hiding in plain sight is intriguing as well, and i rly am fascinated yet disturbed reading it. moreover, while the novel can turn very dark w/ its concept of mind eaters, much of the violence and gore feel true and never gratuitous.
it's a lil weird though how the 'present' takes place in such a short period and oft gets overshadowed by devon's more interesting past; only when the crew reaches the ravenscars' manor that things truly pick up in the present. furthermore, a few parts is predictable and the climax feels rushed, cutting off when neither devon nor the reader has had time to fully process things. a sequel seems certain though and im interested to see how things develop w/ devon's hopeful rescue of salem.
it's a trip to witness devon evolving from a sheltered, naive child unbeknownst of the world's dangerous reality to a harrowed woman who makes tough choices and willing to do anything to protect her child. how the world and the system oppresses and commodifies her, and how she grows into herself to game and turn against them.
what i like most abt the book is its worldbuilding, how dean takes advantage of the 'eating books' idea oft fantasized by book lovers and turns it into this dark, gripping, yet understandable story propelled by its own rules, culture, politics and machinations that mirror the real world in many aspects. how it could be hiding in plain sight is intriguing as well, and i rly am fascinated yet disturbed reading it. moreover, while the novel can turn very dark w/ its concept of mind eaters, much of the violence and gore feel true and never gratuitous.
it's a lil weird though how the 'present' takes place in such a short period and oft gets overshadowed by devon's more interesting past; only when the crew reaches the ravenscars' manor that things truly pick up in the present. furthermore, a few parts is predictable and the climax feels rushed, cutting off when neither devon nor the reader has had time to fully process things. a sequel seems certain though and im interested to see how things develop w/ devon's hopeful rescue of salem.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Blood, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Forced institutionalization and Death of parent