Reviews with content warning for Gaslighting - The Book Eaters

The Book Eaters offered up a fascinating concept and - I believe - intended to weave in powerful commentary about disability. Unfortunately, I felt this work was so poorly executed that it actually became harmful & put forth unsettling rhetoric.

When I finished reading, I felt uncomfortable – something about the text simply felt “off”. After reflecting and journaling about it and talking to some fellow readers, I’ve found some clarity and I’ll try to break it apart into the components that felt harmful to me.

SPOILERS BELOW.

Disability Allegory

The author had a compelling commentary to make - I acknowledge her efforts at tackling something that is quite important and also so complicated. She is autistic and I don’t wish to invalidate her identity or experiences. But I believe this work (as it currently stands) does more harm than it offers thoughtful commentary.

The mind eaters are intended to be an allegory for disability. We are therefore viewing them as a marginalized group, and told that some are “good” and “useful” while others are “bad” and “harmful”. They can be “good” if handled by a drug called “Redemption”, given to them by their abusive handlers who institutionalize them. The book eater society is looking into ways to manage fertility - basically so that they can eliminate mind eaters entirely.

This is a snippet from a scene in which a mind eater consumes the mind of a child: “She’d destroyed that infant before giving it back. The child would have missed all its developmental milestones, by not showing emotion or personality or making attempts to communicate. All the things Devon had taken such joy in with her own children would never belong to that woman. Ten minutes to ruin a whole chain of lives.” (This is ableist language, and it is never addressed or resolved.)

Devon’s child (Cai) is a mind eater, and she is both afraid of him and treats him like an adult (he is a five year old child). She repeatedly wonders if there is any bit of soul left in him.

On Devon and Cai’s relationship: “Biologically she was his parent and always would be, but emotionally they had become something closer to partners in crime; mutual abusers locked in codependency.”

Now I believe all of the above is intended to be commentary - challenging us to consider how society treats disabled people, and how parents treat & view their disabled children. But intent does not equal impact, and the plot of the story makes it difficult for readers to comprehend that the eugenics rhetoric is, well, harmful.

Also, in the author’s FAQ she says that no characters are specifically meant to be autistic (alongside this concerning reason): “I do find it easier to write monster characters, though, because if I inadvertently give them autistic traits, neurotypical readers are less likely to complain, as they’re expecting something ur-human anyway.”

Nearly all of the mind eaters are condemned at the end of the novel & die unnecessarily. The survivors? Hester, a mind eater who has had her own long tongue docked so she can’t hurt anyone, and Cai, a child who is basically determined to be “soulless” because his insatiable desire to prey on the innocent has wiped away his own identity. It felt like the messaging became … eugenics is the way to go! These ~creatures~ SHOULD be neutralized because they are innately monstrous. I don’t think I need to explain why this messaging is harmful.

Religious Aspects

“The book eaters did what they have always done best: encourage human technology to advance from the shadows, and then borrow from it. The basics of IVF they mastered long ago…”

The book eaters are scary, inhumans foreigners who have a shadow society and secretly control human progress from afar (these are often red flags for antisemitism). The book eaters are vampirically inspired, and Devon’s family specifically was a nod to Dracula, who has antisemitic origins. (Note: I don’t believe vampires are inherently antisemitic, but it is important to acknowledge their history - and if you are including them in your work of fiction, you should a. do your research on the history of these characterizations and b. employ a sensitivity reader to help catch potential pitfalls or unfortunate tropes.)

Within the text, the book eater society is framed in many ways as Christian. The mind eaters - by extension - read as “disgraced” Christians who feed on the bodies of the innocent (similar to blood libel tropes, and a sub-society of mind eaters even does a sacrificial ritual using an innocent body in the ending segment of the book). In a chapter introduction, mind eaters specifically are linked to Lilith.

Other Issues

Those were the two issues that stood out the most to me, but I didn’t feel as though the queer representation and the framing of women were handled particularly well. The writing conflates ace and aro identities. It wasn’t clear why it would be an issue for a male book eater to be asexual (in fact, you would think the opposite). Devon’s insta-love attraction to Hester and her thought patterns around her queerness were … strange. (It was very “straight woman writing a lesbian” if you know what I mean.) It felt very sloppy.

The women in this book are treated terribly. Now again, that isn’t inherently a problem with the text (and in fact I believe is also attempted commentary), but the issue I had here was that the way women were treated was frequently VALIDATED within the text. Devon and the other Book Eater women are infantilized, treated as cattle who cannot think for themselves or be trusted to make decisions. And Devon truly cannot! I’m also a little alarmed that the author did not include a warning for sexual assault or rape in her content warnings. Did she view Devon’s forced pregnancies as consensual???

Finally, I was just generally let down by the concept. Book eaters were such a cool idea - but ultimately the book-eating aspect didn’t play a significant role in the story at all. The plotting and limitations of the families just didn’t make sense. The attempted feminist critiques played to the individuals and not the systems.

In the author’s notes, she leaves a few comments about the bleakness of the material.

“That impenetrable sense of exhaustion and flat, dull, continuous lack of joy is a common experience for many. We do not all lead happy lives, and I suppose that makes it hard to write happy fiction.”

“The reality of our world is that most suffering is pointless, most stories [aren’t] happy, and sexual violence is the norm [rather] than the exception.”

Well. Message received.

This was not the review I had hoped to leave for The Book Eaters. But I wanted to warn other potential readers of its content. I truly wish the author the best for her future works, and perhaps with some more eyes on future projects she can nail down some powerful commentary.

CW: sexual assault, rape, forced pregnancy, domestic abuse, child abuse (physical & emotional), murder, drug use, alcoholism, body horror, gore, violence, sex trafficking, homophobia, extreme sexism, infertility. gaslighting, grief, starvation, gun violence, car accident

Content Warnings

ivleafclover's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I dunno, I dug about the first half and then it slowed waaaaay down and I lost interest. I was interested enough to keep slogging through to see how it ended (and the end is satisfyingly exciting), but it’s destined for the donation pile. Not one I’ll be tempted to re-read.

Content Warnings

rainbowrachel's review against another edition

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dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

Content Warnings

leonormsousa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

REP

lesbian MC, sapphic LI, asexual male SC, disabled Indian-British SC

QUOTE

“For here was the thing that no fairy tale would ever admit, but that she understood in that moment: love was not inherently good.
Certainly, it could inspire goodness. She didn’t argue that. Poets would tell you that love was electricity in your veins that could light a room. That it was a river in your soul to lift you up and carry you away, or a fire inside the heart to keep you warm. Yet electricity could also fry, rivers could drown, and fires could burn; love could be destructive. Punishingly, fatally destructive.
And the other thing, the real bloody clincher of it all, was that the good and the bad didn’t get served up equally. If love were a balance of electric lights and electric jolts, two sides of an equally weighted coin, then fair enough. She could deal.
That wasn’t how it worked, though. Some love was just the bad, all the time: an endless parade of electrified bones and drowned lungs and hearts that burned to a cinder inside the cage of your chest.
And so she looked down at her son and loved him with the kind of twisted, complex feeling that came from having never wanted him in the first place; she loved him with bitterness, and she loved him with resignation. She loved him though she knew no good could ever come from such a bond."

THINGS I ENJOYED

Sunyi Dean's writing is stunning (something I've confirmed in her two recent short stories), and I think I might read everything she puts out there
So many great and strong passages! (I'm not one to annotate but this book made me want to)
We love a book that doesn't shy away from talking about misogyny and oppressive societies
How the author explored the topic of love, especially maternal love and how it can twist your moral boundaries (see the quote I included)
The queer rep <3
The concept of book and mind eaters was so interesting and original, and the chapter introductions with the lore really made the experience better
It really stuck with me (it has been 4 months since I read and I not only think about it but almost feel like rereading it)
The dual-timeline storytelling works so well

THINGS I DIDN'T ENJOY

The ending was a bit too rushed and even almost “too easy”.
Some details were given a lot of emphasis in the book but then ended up not playing any part at all, which felt a bit misleading and incoherent.

THINGS THAT I'VE SEEN CRITICISM ABOUT AND WHY I ACTUALLY LIKED THEM

The world-building is limited - I think that the vagueness and unresolvedness of this book fitted it quite well. It's very rooted in Devon, so for me, it made sense that we didn't knew much about the book/mind eaters origin or lore (or other topics of the book in general) because she didn't knew it as well, either because she wasn't given that information as a woman or because it was not knowledge the book eater society had at the time.
The abrupt ending - I actually like open endings and thought this one fitted the book well

READ IF YOU ENJOY

creepy books with grey/dark characters
stories about unhinged women trying to break free
topics like misogynist societies and motherhood
urban fantasy/sci-fi elements as a means to uncover and discuss real-life situations

Content Warnings

amiegold's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The book Eaters is a dark, wild ride! A mother and her 5 year old 'mind eating' son embark on a long and painful journey to find a cure for his mind eating that will let him live in the human world without being a danger to others. It opens with Devon in a large manor and being raised as a princess. But, we soon feel that there is a dark, underlying motive for everything around her. I felt like it was almost a literary horror, if that is a thing. It explored the idea that people in fairytales may not have it as good as we always thought. Princesses, arranged marriages, and being raised to produce an 'heir' are all things out of our real-life history. However, in Book Eaters, she takes these ideas and mixes them with a new kind of monster that is oh-so-fun to read. If you like a bit of horror mixed with introspective moments, this book would be a great fit. It may not be the right fit if you are looking for a light or thoughtless horror.

Content Warnings

morganpearcy's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

I was super excited about the concept of Book Eaters. When I got into it, the reading was easy and flowed well - but I wouldn’t classify this as horror.

The literal book eating and mind eating wasn’t explored as much as I would have hoped. I got to the end of the book and still had some unanswered questions. The overall book felt kind of flat compared to what I was expecting based on the summary.

All that being said, it was a quick read. Interesting concept. Lesbian awakening!! Revolution and patriarchy-smashing vibes. It makes for a nice easy read.

Content Warnings

tairameadowcroft's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is such an original story idea and I enjoyed this book from start to finish.

Content Warnings

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