Scan barcode
arha's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
(If you'll pardon the expression,) this book got under my skin. Not all the sentences, individually, are good. Collectively, they form a prose style that infects my mind and makes the world feel terrifying and wonderful. And that prose style comes in the service of something genuinely magnificent.
I went into this book knowing basically nothing about it: I read one of Indra Das' short stories and decided it was good enough that I'd read whatever else he felt like writing. I stand by that decision. Between deciding to read it and starting it, though, I did see some people online refer to it as "the piss kink book". I feel that this description undersells both the quantity of bodily fluids and the quantity of weird sex encountered in the course of these beautiful intertwined stories. It's all thematically appropriate, and one could argue that it is tastefully done, but I think almost every bodily fluid the body can produce makes an appearance, and most of them are sexualized. You have been warned/enticed, depending on how you feel about that sort of thing.
As someone who dissects mice for a living, I appreciated the accuracy and specificity in the blood 'n' guts. Two of the humans who make appearances solely as terrified prey and then as warm eviscerated carcasses have fatty livers, and there is enough descriptive detail to distinguish that one has metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease due to starvation, and the other has alcoholic liver disease. The level of care, thought, and specificity in this book is incredible and very satisfying.
The other thing I knew about this book before starting (other than "writer good" and "piss kink") was that it was sort of in some way transgender maybe. Honestly, this book's perspective on gender is far too interesting for the internet. It's a look at patriarchal violence and gender-warping transcendence that is lucid and hallucinatory, and, crucially, very fucking cool.
If all that sounds too abstract for you, I told my boyfriend that it's a book about a history professor having a gay werewolf romance and read him the sexy bits out of context, and he liked it a lot.
I went into this book knowing basically nothing about it: I read one of Indra Das' short stories and decided it was good enough that I'd read whatever else he felt like writing. I stand by that decision. Between deciding to read it and starting it, though, I did see some people online refer to it as "the piss kink book". I feel that this description undersells both the quantity of bodily fluids and the quantity of weird sex encountered in the course of these beautiful intertwined stories. It's all thematically appropriate, and one could argue that it is tastefully done, but I think almost every bodily fluid the body can produce makes an appearance, and most of them are sexualized. You have been warned/enticed, depending on how you feel about that sort of thing.
As someone who dissects mice for a living, I appreciated the accuracy and specificity in the blood 'n' guts. Two of the humans who make appearances solely as terrified prey and then as warm eviscerated carcasses have fatty livers, and there is enough descriptive detail to distinguish that one has metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease due to starvation, and the other has alcoholic liver disease. The level of care, thought, and specificity in this book is incredible and very satisfying.
The other thing I knew about this book before starting (other than "writer good" and "piss kink") was that it was sort of in some way transgender maybe. Honestly, this book's perspective on gender is far too interesting for the internet. It's a look at patriarchal violence and gender-warping transcendence that is lucid and hallucinatory, and, crucially, very fucking cool.
If all that sounds too abstract for you, I told my boyfriend that it's a book about a history professor having a gay werewolf romance and read him the sexy bits out of context, and he liked it a lot.
caitsidhe's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
5.0
This is incredible. Filthy, profane, erotic, sad, thoughtful. It reminds me of THE LAST WEREWOLF (https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7b7bf378-1763-40d3-bd05-ce27032d9fcf), a book I also very much enjoyed - and if you loved that you'll love this, and vice versa.
haliespages's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
laura1980458's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
yrioona's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-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
3.5
A lush, vivid, gory, and sexy take on the "undead/shapeshifter" genre(s), dense with historical texture and a profound sense of place. I found this a bit uneven -- sometimes characters make choices or reel off dialogue in service to the plot but not grounded in their personalities/motivations, and sometimes Das's language (which is gorgeously descriptive) trips over itself with overwrought phrasing and flashy word choices -- but when it works it really works! The nested, nonlinear, narrative structure (and the interplay between this structure and all the um, devouring) is beautifully done. There is something a bit first-book-y about this but it's still something really special.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Murder, and Cannibalism
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Colonisation
kitnotmarlowe's review against another edition
I'm so disappointed in myself for not even finishing a book that's been on my tbr for probably half a decade minimum, however I could not force myself through a single page. Partly this is because the formatting on my ebook was slightly broken so the margins were HUGE, but also because it felt like I read 5 pages for every page. I was super interested in the narrative (though much more in the framing device than the story at its core) but the pace was excruciating to the point where it became a chore to read. I started three other books in the process of reading half of this and it isn't even long. Indra Das does not know how to describe setting or horror without invoking piss and shit. There is more piss and shit in this book than there has been in my 26 years of life.
empoleon's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I realized by the end (and maybe this was spelled out too heavy-handedly by the author), that this book is an allegory about change. We are not static people, we are not necessarily defined by the gender listed on a birth certificate, the name given to us, or the expectations of other people. We can change, and we should change, as we grow into the person that we are meant to be. Sometimes this change will be painful, uncertain, and unaccepted by others, but that's ok. Because as long as you know who you are, that change was meant to happen.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Blood, Sexual assault, and Violence
shayfiction's review against another edition
Really tired to give this another shot via audiobook this time. Just boring to me.
starrysteph's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-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
3.75
The Devourers is a dark & slow burn, an ode to storytelling and legacy, and a reckoning with identity and who controls it.
When college professor Alok meets a mysterious stranger who claims to be a half werewolf, he can’t help but accept the stranger’s request to transcribe a bizarre collection of texts. Alok is cynical, but can’t look away. And the documents soon transport him back to seventeenth-century India, where a violent shapeshifting traveler is transfixed by a human woman. As the story deepens, so does Alok’s relationship with the stranger – especially as the tales creep closer and closer to the present and the stranger’s own heritage.
I can understand why many people might dislike this book. You have a choice to lean in or push it away. It’s a very stylized read - a bit slow and unusual. It almost feels like it wasn’t written by a modern writer.
“We are the devouring, not the creative.” / “I marveled that these were beings that didn’t know love. Then again, they were fighting because they had, each in their own way, found the same.”
It’s an uncomfortable book at times. It’s a visceral attack on the senses (urine, vomit, feces, gore, rape, eating flesh, and other violence). It’s very carnal, very animalistic, very rooted in the body. It leans into the dark side of humanity, illuminating a world of violence.
The Devourers is a queer (& specifically trans) allegory. Each character examines their own relationship to their identity and their body. They challenge what you were born to do and be, ‘how the world is’, predator and prey, and gender assumptions in all forms.
“I am forever amid the possibility of the impossible.”
It ponders storytelling as intimacy (especially when you are expected to distance yourself from all personal emotions), and how the stories told about you shape the footprints you leave in this world. It views myths and folklore not as separate cultural stories, but as different ways of shaping the same existence.
“I am a character in myth, in folklore, and no one even knows it.”
And yeah, there’s a lot of hunger and cravings and devourings in all forms. It can be grotesque, but also quite beautiful. What does it mean to devour yourself - or to give yourself over to another form - or to devour another and take that ‘othered’ experience into your body and mind?
I’m not sure every angle of this book came together to offer a completely even whole - and I think that it meandered too long in some moments - but it definitely got me thinking. The Devourers drained me a bit, and its view of the world is mostly unpleasant, but it’s also got some eloquent prose and striking metaphor.
CW: murder, death (parent/child), blood/gore, cannibalism, body horror, excrement, vomit, pregnancy, queerphobia, misogyny, animal death, stalking, sexual content
Follow me on TikTok for book recommendations!
spellbookspines's review against another edition
3.0
To write dark fantasy you need to do more than just mention piss and blood over and over. Give me gross shapeshifters but commit to it! The ideas here were fascinating but unfortunately there's nothing this book executed particularly well.