Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

64 reviews

remaininlullaby's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

i got into this expecting to read a story about a mother who moved mountains for her child. i kinda got that, but i also got way too many pages of men trying to oppress women/mothers by using their children against them & ugh. i wish i'd read some cws first bc while it wasn't actually triggering for me i found all these sect-/cult-like tendencies to be vERY uncomfortable and unsettling.
the whole "love doesn't have rules or a cost & also isn't necessarily good all the time" was a cool touch tho.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Pregnancy, and Misogyny

Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Murder, Death of parent, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Trafficking, Child abuse, and Alcoholism

Minor: Infertility, Rape, Homophobia, and Medical trauma

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

aharper's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Gore, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Trafficking

kimmag92's review against another edition

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

daffodilcherry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

4.5

A book about monsterous love and burning down the whole damn system. It took me until about a quarter of the way through the book to really get hooked, and then I devoured the rest of the book. I loved the development of Devon & Cai's relationship, their gradual understanding. I especially loved the worldbuilding of the 'eaters, and the different relationships between the cast.
Wheelhouse items: monsterous love, mother-child relationship, secret society, immersive worldbuilding, butch lesbians, chaos lesbians, burning the whole system down, fairytale subversion. 
Content warning explanations:

Devon is coerced into relationships with older men for conception of children, one of which is outwardly physically violent towards her.
 Theme of forceful separation between mother & child is very prevalent.
The eaters either eat books or people's minds, many scenes showing mind eating done by the child character, including that of a baby. 
One of the 'eater families trafficks humans to work for them.
One of the villanous characters has religious delusions about mind eating.</Spoiler>

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Violence, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Body horror, Death, Child death, Misogyny, Sexism, Murder, Gun violence, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Trafficking

Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia

innastholiel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Alcohol, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Rape, Death, Infertility, Gore, Murder, Sexual assault, Abandonment, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, and Torture

sohma4uesugi's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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

The world was so fascinating. I admit to being disappointed we didn’t get more of it. I wanted more of the families, more about the Creator, more of the knights when they were good, and less of what they became. I wanted so much more Jarrow. I just wanted more. This story held such promise, but the way it twisted between overly complex to overly simplified and back again was jarring at times. I could make out pieces of the end before we got there, but not all of it. Not because I was kept guessing, but because there was not enough footwork left behind. Too many things came out of left field and others were painfully obvious. The end seemed abrupt and wrongly placed. I wanted more. Again. 

Parts dragged so deeply I had to force myself to keep going, bored and distracted. Others had me eagerly turning pages. 

Mani and Hester were interesting and I would have loved to have much more of them and what they went through in the past than what we got. 

The morality of Cai was interesting, but barely touched on. Ramsey disappointed me so deeply in the depths of his cruelty. At the same time his character was flat, too one-planed and I so badly wanted more. I mourned far more for E and Ramsey’s loss of him than I did for Ramsey himself. 

I enjoyed the way different sexualities were displayed and touched on in the books, but there wasn’t consistency.

Overall, this read left me wanting more of the world, but a whole lot less of Devon. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Gore, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Infertility, Alcohol, Rape, Child abuse, Alcoholism, and Pregnancy

Minor: Drug use, Trafficking, and Abandonment

georgia7's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Physical abuse, Rape, Abandonment, Blood, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gore, Pregnancy, Child abuse, Death, Infertility, Murder, Sexism, Sexual content, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Slavery and Alcohol

monnibo's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Bullying, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Confinement, Gore, Pregnancy, Blood, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Death, Cannibalism, Eating disorder, Violence, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Infertility, Rape, Torture, and Toxic relationship

takarakei's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

This is a very dark book. Oddly it fits as a Christmas read since a lot of it happens during that time, there is a lot of reference to Christmas. I did enjoy it for the most part while reading it, but after finishing it and sitting with it a bit I'm still not sure how I really feel. The concept of Book Eaters is very cool, but I expected that cool idea to be a bigger part of the book. Ultimately this story is about a woman and mother who is brought up in a horrible patriarchal society (separate from ours) and is basically a comment on how far a mother will go to protect her children. It's told in multiple timelines (the past of her whole life for background and present).

Jarrow is the best character. Protect Jarrow.

There is also a minor romance subplot which feels... very underdeveloped. Hella insta-lovey and I just didn't really understand why it needed to be there if it was so underdeveloped. It does have LGBTQIA+ rep.

I'd say this is maybe give it a try if this is your genre cause it's short, but borrow it from your library.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Gore, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Misogyny, and Blood

Moderate: Violence and Gun violence

Minor: Trafficking and Infertility