Reviews with content warning for Gore - The Devourers

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

The Devourers by Indra Das

53 reviews

jessthanthree's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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kell_xavi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

3.5

I was enamoured with this writing at the very beginning, Das’ canny worldbuilding on the intricate foundations of mythos and South Asian history. The stories herein are a poetic and gritty recovery of people, fundamentally, though their forms and settings carve the shape of the narrative. The courage and tenacity of one woman (a major player in the text) is an especially strong point, and the choices of the shapeshifters who take the bodies of men deepen what initially appears as swaggering brutality.

There is much about the body here, a visceral beastliness and texture to embodiment in many forms—though it is characterized by releasing of waste, blood, semen more often than is my preference. There is also a violence towards bodies, in their ripping apart and consumption, or the devouring of the title. Sexual encounters are carnal and animal as well, filled with pungency, passion.

This is not a book for everybody, but I appreciated the ways in which Das made his shapeshifters seem more animal than supernatural, with an intensity to their worldliness. There is heat and bulk to them, rage and suffering. There is also a culture told by ritual, language, and customs that I could follow in their repercussions while not fully understanding their meanings. Where romance and human-creature relationship are prevalent in many supernatural novels, The Devourers is a welcome subversion. This book at once denies those plot lines, and works them back in, with more messiness and devastation that creates small, earned moments of tenderness.

My last point, and another delightful subversion, is that this book is very queer. When we first meet him, the narrator (Alok) is quietly and somewhat shamefully bisexual; however, though I emohasize it here, in the text this queerness and gender is shown as a part of having a body—of embodying, using and changing flesh. The shapeshifters can choose the appearance of their first (humanoid) selves and their second (beastly) selves, altering gender or appearing with multiple genitalia. They are also sexual in a way not precluded by gender. Though women are treated with a misogyny that fits the historical context, the author (and the narrative) focus/es on agency and inner life of Cyrah with empathy and admiration.

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kelleyannelyse's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective 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

3.5

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poisoned_icecream's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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ronda_bowen's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This was a very strange book, and kind of uneven. There were parts that I liked, parts that I didn't like, and parts that were just gross. Yet I kept turning the page... I feel like a bunch could have been cut from the novel and it would have been just as good. There were about 4 or 5 places where it could have ended. The real beginning of the story was about 80 pages in... it was just strange. I liked it okay though.

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