Reviews with content warning for Vomit - The Book Eaters

This book succeeds as a gothic allegory exploring the ways both targeted abuse and impersonal violence are used to maintain an oppressive culture. If it were marketed primarily as an introspective novel about a woman's journey to free herself and her children from abuse, people might not be so disappointed that the SFF elements aren't at the forefront. I don't think the physiology and culture of the otherworldly race are underdeveloped, but they aren't emphasized.

I wasn't disappointed by the focus on Devon's personal arc. I was, however, disappointed that the crucial parts of that arc happened almost entirely in the past. The present-day chapters feel like they're only there to build tension as you wait to figure out what led up to them—they don't carry the narrative weight of half the book, despite getting half the book's "screen time." Characters like Hester, Cai, and Killock are intriguing, and I wish they'd been given more depth.

Overall, I found the worldbuilding compelling, and I'd be interested in revisiting the world to learn more about mind eaters in particular.

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

ashleyrunswild's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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xangemthelibrarian's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

"You're not scared of me because you're an even bigger, meaner monster than me. You'd eat the whole world to help me out and I think I'd do that for you, too. You're my monster and I'm yours [...] we must go together because we are a monster family." - Cai to Devon, pg. 252

That spoiler up above is my favorite quote from the book, but it does reveal a plot point, so don't read it if you want to keep the surprise!

I love Devon. She's not painted as a hero by any means. She's just a mom, doing literally whatever it takes and sacrificing her whole being to care for her son in a world that is dead set against her succeeding. A world that very obviously favors men and sets women up to be no more than child-bearing cattle. (I haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, but I wonder if these two books would pair well together.) ALSO the Book Eater lore! Very interesting! And the constant parallels between their world and the old-fashioned fairytales. It's both very distressing and so good.

I also love the message: Love is simply a choice you make. The idea of "cost" or "worth" doesn't apply. You choose to love like you choose to live every day. And the "huge" choices Devon makes all throughout the story just seem so natural for her as a character because she talks so frequently about the "little" choices she made to support Cai.

One final thing that puts this book at the top for me: Neurodiverse author who loves "rolling d20s!" I'm honestly a fan of anyone who enjoys the click-clack math rocks. Definitely following on Twitter because the ending here has one loose end that can either stay unresolved or maybe spin into another book?? Hopefully?? 👀

Content Warnings

bethsiekierawalker's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-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

5.0

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sarah984's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

1.0

If you remember that era in the early 2000s where everyone was making zombie media but it wasn't really cool anymore, so they were all sort of ashamed about it and like, "well MY creatures aren't zombies because they [one random gimmick; it's a fungus or whatever]," even though they totally are zombies - this is that but with vampires.

Even at the end I was totally unclear on how book eating was supposed to work. The characters' homes are full of intact books and they have fangs so I assumed they drained the book's "essence" or something, but later a character is putting ketchup on one, or soaking it in water to make it easier to eat. Book eating is always sort of elided, which is kind of funny because mind eating (a sort of mutation that some book eaters have that requires them to eat brains) is so vividly described on multiple occasions.

The characters all sound the same and half the book is characters describing events that have already happened to each other, so there isn't much suspense until right at the end. There is one problem that hangs over the characters for most of the runtime but then is IMMEDIATELY solved the second it actually comes up, which felt kind of pointless.

The romance is terrible; the characters barely talk and suddenly the kid is calling them girlfriends. This woman is the only one the main character really interacts with, which is sort of weird for a book billing itself as feminist. She looks at most other women with either pity or scorn. There is an extremely weird chapter where characters quote the dictionary definition of asexuality at each other that ends up being almost insulting, and the "I ruined a baby with my son's Autism Beam" bit was ridiculous.

I have no idea what the book was trying to say: parental love can be self destructive? Fairy tales destroy the imagination? The author really likes Tomb Raider and needs to make sure we know it?

Content Warnings

purplepenning's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I don't usually do horror or horror-adjacent and I literally just finished reading it on a dark and stormy night when I still have a touch of fever, so I need a beat before crafting a real review. It's undoubtedly fascinating, though! And the writing is lush but not overly so.

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