Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Book Eaters

Starting this review by saying that this is definitely not my usual genre-and there were moments where that really mattered in some of the more descriptive horror-y sections, and that’s why I can’t rate it higher than 3.5 stars. If you like horror, I’d recommend it.

Devon was a great main character, a mother who would stop at nothing to protect and save her children, but her son, Cai, was not my favourite character.

I found Cai incredibly unlikable, which I guess is part of being a mind eater? But still, very hard to connect with the character and want him to succeed

I really enjoyed the ending, although the big twist wasn’t hard to spot it was still fun to read. Couldn’t put it down for the last 100 pages.

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asolis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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ashhearddwrites's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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gen_wolfhailstorm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.0

The Details:
Narrated by Katie Erich
Unabridged

This was just okay for me. It had a really cool snd unique concept but I just lacked any emotional connection for the story and ended up more or less having it on as background noise, unfortunately.
I wish I had had a stronger feeling for this title.

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snowwhitehatesapples's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Also on Snow White Hates Apples.

As one of my most highly anticipated reads, I was a little disappointed by how average this book turned out.

The Book Eaters has an intriguing premise that I’m sure would attract every bibliophile out there — after all, what’s not to love about a book where books play a prominent role? To make it all the more interesting, this book features a species of human-like beings that subsist on either books or brains only. They’re hidden from the watchful, fearful eyes of many humans and they have long lifespans. However, their females can only give birth to two children all their life which means that if not enough females are born, there will come a time when they’ll become extinct. As such, knights and dragons play a crucial role in arranging marriages between the Families, which contributes to maintaining and enforcing the status quo.

This results in an insular and strongly patriarchal community where a female’s only worth is the offspring she has…and she’s not even allowed to care for the child past them turning 3 years old. All this gives a lot of room for social commentary on patriarchy, misogyny, misandry, toxic femininity, toxic masculinity and other gender issues. It also allows for explorations on trust and identity.

Sadly, both the execution and characters were lacking. Although there were some complexities and depth to the social commentary, the way the story was written wasn’t strong enough to uphold those notions. It also didn’t help that despite the clear system and context on book eaters and mind eaters, their presence was more secondary. So in overall, these two aspects made for an underwhelming story.

Moreover, I found it difficult to care for the characters. Sure, I could sympathise with them and their situations, but there remains a distance that somehow made them feel flat even though they were all distinct, compelling and memorable.

Everything considered, The Book Eaters has a lot of promise and potential, which makes it a shame that I didn’t find it as mind-blowing as I had hoped for. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a read where the focus is more on an underdog’s journey to gain freedom and independence away from all that confined them and their loved ones, this is a book to try.

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nahimgood's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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lemerrier's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No

2.5

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emcl7weenie's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced

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

2.0

First 10 chapters of this book were fantastic with setup, character development, mystery, worldbuilding, and pacing. Then it stopped for the rest of the book. The 2 stars are for a creative concept with the book eaters and setting a fantastic gothic horror tone. As well as some well written scenes. Overall, it fell flat. It was a heavy character driven story, but lacked a lot of character development for me. As well as

wasting a lot of time in the past. Being in the past so often the author wasn't able to build up present tension, character relationships, and tension well enough. The ending was also very predictable.

It felt like you were in a DnD campaign and the party decided to speed run the main objective skipping all cut scenes and side quests of interest.

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