Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

113 reviews

pettigrew143's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Cannibalism, Death, Violence, Murder, Blood, and Sexual assault

brandilovesbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark 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? It's complicated

4.0

Hester is a Book Eater- a human-like species that eats books to gain knowledge.  She is raised as a princess, given fairy-tales to eat.  Her job is to marry and have a baby.  Then she'll marry another and have another baby.  

The Book Eaters is a story of how far someone will go for the people she loves the most.   It is a story of family, both blood and found.   

I will definitely be reading the sequel.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Alcohol, Gore, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Cannibalism, and Sexism

cgoedel's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I absolutely loved this. It took a while to build the background because you were simultaneously getting a present time-line, but it fit together seamlessly. I also love some queer representation and it was so subtle. I will be reading this again!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Blood, and Murder

Minor: Rape

anastasiamakes's review against another edition

challenging dark hopeful 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

4.0

A story of motherly love, and the lengths one will go to to protect her child in a world pitted against them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Grief, Misogyny, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Death, Blood, Body horror, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, and Rape

Minor: Alcohol, Confinement, Cursing, Gun violence, Slavery, and Vomit

bubbly_lara's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

What a brilliant book! 
The setting, atmosphere and mood were very dark and gloomy, but in a good way (reminded me a bit of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's "Mexican Gothic"). 

I really liked the story, the characters and the writing style. Highlighted quite a lot of quotes, I'll put three further down below.

The themes of chosen/found family and trying to find who you are as a person outside of the people you grew up with, what is expected of you vs the pursuit of what makes you happy deeply resonated with me. 

Highly recommend if you're looking for a slightly spooky, rather dark and grim story of a young mother trying to break her son and herself free from familial chains and expectations, hoping to one day have a better life for themselves.

"Memory was an anchor. It could ground you in a storm, keep you from drifting.
But anchors could also weigh you down and keep you from sailing free."

"For here was the thing that no fairy tale would ever admit, but that she understood in that moment: love was not inherently good."

"- What price do you put on love? 
- No price. There isn't one. Love doesn't have a cost. It's just a choice you make."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Blood, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Grief, Gun violence, Violence, and Abandonment

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Violence, Gore, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Alcohol, Grief, Infertility, Blood, Classism, Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, and Body horror

Minor: Incest, Outing, Rape, Torture, Trafficking, and Adult/minor relationship

laylagrace's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Gore, and Torture

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Pregnancy, Blood, and Body horror

kimmag92's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.0

The Book Eaters was much better than the internet led me to believe. The quickest way I can think of to describe this book is The Handmaids Tale but with aliens. Book eaters were created by an alien being they call The Collector and live in an insular closed off society where women only consume fairy tales, are taught nothing of the real world, and who’s only value is to have children. It’s a duel timeline story where we follow a book eater named Devon who is trying to find the Ravenscar book eater family who have something that can save her son Cai who is a mind eater.  

I do agree with others that issues Devon faces resolve somewhat easily but I think that is purposefully. Devon will never have a fairy tale ending so the only aspect of those stories she can have is things work out for her though what happens to her is far from happy. 

I think the negative feelings towards this book are a product of a few prominent “book-fluencers” saying they didn’t like it and then everyone enmass deciding not to read it. If you like Handmaids Tale type stories then you’ll like this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore and Murder

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Abandonment, Confinement, Suicidal thoughts, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Pregnancy, Vomit, Medical trauma, and Violence

thepermageek's review

adventurous challenging dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Body horror, and Torture

Moderate: Vomit

moonchild_cos's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Body horror, Gaslighting, Death, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Blood, and Misogyny

Minor: Alcohol, Medical content, Pregnancy, Child abuse, and Vomit

plantgal_jill's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Mass/school shootings, Gaslighting, Confinement, and Trafficking