A review by hannahg94
The Devourers by Indra Das

adventurous mysterious reflective medium-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

It's a weird book. It's an odd book. And I both liked it and didn't all at once. 

Note: Some light spoilers-- found it too hard to describe without them. 

It's a story within a story. A young college professor finds himself hypnotized by the bizarre conversation he has with a stranger who claims to be half-werewolf (full well knowing this is a rather deceitful way of describing himself-- he is a shape-shifter). The stranger asks him to transcribe an old text for him, and the professor agrees to, for reasons he himself cannot explain. The text tells a story of another shape-shifter, who after centuries of "devouring life" wants to create it, so he rapes a human woman. That's none too pleasing to the woman, who teams up with the shape-shifter's ex-companion to hunt him down, and attempt vengeance. 

The narration of the books gets passed around from the professor, Alok, the human woman, Cyrah, and to lesser degrees, the two shape-shifters (Fenrir and "The Stranger").

I thoroughly enjoyed Cyrah's narration, it is memorizing with a lot of pull and interest to it. Most of the "plot" takes place in her chapters. Her voice was the most interesting to me, and she is certainly the most likeable character. I found both shape-shifters pretty unlikable (though I imagine that is the point). And Alok is... fine. I guess. He was neither here nor there for me. 

So why didn't I like the book? The main reason is probably that the writing in general was a bit too gory for me. I have pretty vivid images in my head when I read, and I think this is the only book I've ever read that made me continuously cringe from the sheer amount of vomit, urine, and consumption of human flesh mentioned on nearly every page. It made some parts of the book genuinely unpleasant to read. I also found some parts of the book pretty slow, and some of the descriptions are a little too indulged in for my liking (especially, but not always, when they were gory descriptions).  

However, the story is pretty fascinating and the writing can be beautiful. I know very little about the parts of the world this book takes place in, but Indra Das painted the pictures very clearly.

Overall, it's a pretty well-written book, if not my personal cup of tea. 
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