moonsprncss 's review for:

Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker
3.5
dark reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
But white men are going after Asian girls, and that’s all they have to go on, us being Asian. No one wants to look harder at us. To imagine that we’re real people.

I'm going to open up this review by saying this book is a very strong, deep punch to your guts. I'm not referring to the very graphic, very disturbing descriptions of blood, gore, intestines, brain goo, crime scenes and whatsoever there is in the story. Instead, I'm referring to blatant racism, hatred, bigotry, sinophobia this book discusses - the hard pills to swallow.

We're looking at a horror book with supernatural hungry ghosts and Chinese mythology/beliefs, yes, but above that we're looking at a story that peels very clearly and sharpely how COVID brought to light the darkest in so many people. How so many of us looked at people we thought we knew and heard them saying things we never thought they'd say or saw them doing things we never thought they'd do. We're reading a story that makes us pause and remember how the rate of hate crimes against asians skyrocketed during COVID, how science was doubted and ignored, how easily fingers were pointed to a nation - or group of people - in an attempt to either divert attention or find a scapegoat to blame, something - someone - more tangible and solid than a virus. 

we don’t get to look away. We’re dying and no one can hear us.”

This is a reflection of how the emergency button of capitalism is fascism and its tentacles pointing, accusing and killing what (or who) is "different", lesser, disposable. It's the superiority complex, it's the manipulated narrative, it's the undisputed fake claims and rapid-fire propagation of fake news, it's the propaganda, it's a system meant to deteriorate and decimate. That's where true horror lies - not in hungry ghosts eating entire humans or detailed descriptions of mangled bodies in crime scenes fruit of hate crimes (though that does tip the scale). We're a reading a reminder of how we failed then - and continue to fail now - as a society. Of how, once again, the world played the "blaming game" and people of color were left to carry the brunt of the price. We're reading a reminder of how much - and how many - we lost, a reminder of how fleeting, fragile and feeble we, as humans, are. How unprepared, how uncertain, how cruel we can be. In that sense, this is a 5 star read (and a strong one at that).

The thought sickens her, the idea that the kind of person who carves people like her open could smile at other people. That he could be loved by other people. Because what does that make Delilah and Yuxi and Zihan and Ai and Officer Wang? Subhuman, bat eaters, garbage to be taken out, people who don’t deserve his humanness.

However, the story isn't just made of those layers. We've got settings, characters, events and all the mishmash of things that make a book... a book. And that's where my stars reduce and don't shine as bright, because Cora Zeng is pathetic. And it's really, truly a herculean task to be inside her mind. Well, to be fair, we're not really inside her mind because this isn't a first person's PoV, but we have a somewhat omniscient 3rd person's PoV and that's enough to feel like the story is 400 pounds heavy being dragged around by someone with the strength of a 7 year old kid.

It gets to a point where it just becomes exhausting to read - and see - over and over again how uncapable and unfit Cora is. How she doesn't have her own opinions, dreams, wants or even a personality. She's inept, she's an echo of what a human being is supposed to be like, she's a shadow and she knows it. For all her flaws, Cora sure is self aware. 

But you can’t teach someone how to be a person. Cora was never real, she was only an echo of Delilah, and with her gone, she is no one at all.

She knows it so much that she - or the narrator - doesn't let us forget it. Not for a second. There is simply no way we can ever miss the fact that she's both a loser and a failure. She's not captivating because she doesn't have anything of hers for us to attach to, she's not strong on her own because she can't make her own decisions, she's not capable because she needs someone to constantly guide her somewhere, to tell her what to do, what to say, who to follow, where to go, to tell her what's right, wrong, real or fake. 
All of that is purposeful, yes, it serves as build up for whatever is to come, it serves as a mirror for those that feel the same way as Cora does, it serves as an ugly reminder of how utterly miserable some (or most) people's minds are (either it be all the time or sometimes). It serves a purpose because all we get to see is Cora's perception of herself, her germaphobe ways, her quirks (or "one of her things" how Harvey calls them), her failures, her shortcomings, but God is it exhausting. It's suffocating, as it should be because that's how someone that has so much anxiety about everything and nothing at all feels, but it. is. suffocating. She's miserable all the time and, in turn, it feels like we are miserable all the time, like we can't breathe, like we can't escape the epic failure that she is (or thinks herself to be). And it's so draining that I do feel like, at times, it's disengaging. You lose connection to the story, lose some of the interest because while there's a lot happening, Cora's boat only moves if someone moves (or rattles) it for her. 

She knows, on some level, that most of the problems in her life are her own fault in one way or another.

In the very beginning of the story, we see Cora losing her sister in a very brutal, gory way. It's the initial glimpse we have of the plotlines that will unfold. We soon see (and are told) that Cora both loves and hates her sister. Delilah is all she's ever known and whom she's always followed. Despite the brief glimpse we have of Delilah - someone egocentric, shallow, superfluous, self centered, selfish and whatever other synonyms are available -, she remains Cora's compass, pulling her north or whatever direction she (Delilah) felt fit. Cora was like an accessory to Delilah. Always there, but never important enough. And still, Cora remained. She never outgrew her sister, never found herself, never made plans of her own, never had aspirations to fight for, so once Delilah is no more, Cora fades into her very own darkness because she doesn't know who she is if not Delilah's sister, she doesn't know what to do if not follow Delilah around - that's the baseline we, as readers, are dealing with and continue to deal with throughout the book.
 
It's a slow build up but it gets better as we are introduced to Yifei and Harvey, Cora's co-workers slash friends slash Ghostbusters partners. They're this very strange, mismatched puzzle, but they fit, or rather, they make it fit.
I was captivated by the very brief look we got of Yifei's backstory (perhaps more engaged to that than to Cora's echoing thoughts) and I'd have loved a further, deeper glimpse, but we didn't have the time (they were, after all, in a very... sticky situation, if you catch my drift).
I also loved the excerpts from Auntie Zeng's books/her little tips and I don't understand why Cora ran to her only when she had no other options left.

The pacing, as I've said before, felt off for me. It was hot and cold up until it became scorching hot by 60-65% (ish) of the book, when things really started picking up and it was a go go go go go type of feeling. Left me gasping for air with the amount of curveballs thrown and I felt so saddened by two specific events that went down that I wonder how one comes out of it, if one can even recover.

The ending wasn't a satisfying scratch to a very bothersome itch you don't know where it's coming from, but it was real. And it's what happens. And it isn't like finding the light, being enlightened, eureka type of thing. It's dull, it's hopeless and it's reality. It circles back to the the very core of the book and seals the deal. 

All in all, it's a strong read. I did enjoy it more once the pace picked up and Cora didn't have time to drown in herself and her own doubts. I liked the writing style and I really want to check out Kylie's other works because it felt refreshing (in a very grimy, bloody, oozing brain goo way) and different. It brought something new to my table (and best believe I was already giving up on the damn fantasy-horror-supernatural table because, like a hungry ghost, I could never feel satisfied by what I had read) and gave me hope that the aforementioned genres aren't just a recycled copy-paste of previous published works.
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