Audiobook/Book Review

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

I had a hard time getting in to this initially but once I did, I had a hard time putting it down. It is a dark and delightful mash-up of some of my favorite genres – Gothic vibes and a horror-esque overtone gave it a fantasy feel but the real-life issues of motherhood and the love and sacrifice that often go hand and hand gave it a realistic and heart-wrenching sense of familiarity.

The premise is so clever, the main character Devon recounts her past and her present in a supernatural family/clan of people that survives solely on books, retaining the knowledge gained there. Hence the name The Book Eaters.

Women are treated as brood mares, a vessel to populate the dying clan and their children are taken from them at a young age. Devon’s had a daughter taken away already and she’s in hiding from her family with her young son, Cai, a mind eater – a child who has a hunger for minds, not books; throughout this journey she’ll experience so many things. As Devon grows more independent, she finds there isn’t much a mother won’t do for her child’s survival.

There’s a lot to experience and unpack in this book but it’s the underlying themes that really hit the hardest. Women’s rights, the realities of motherhood, patriarchy and misogyny are explored in the most unique ways.
Katie Erich does an amazing job narrating!

Thank you @MacMillan.Audio and @TorBooks for these gifted copies!

Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
5/5 Stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

•••Spoiler free review below•••

This book is good enough to eat.
I promise.

Book Eaters is one of the most unique, smart, and classically dystopian books I have ever read. We flash back and forth between past and present following our main character, Devon, throughout her life as one of the few remaining female book eaters.

A book eater is exactly how it sounds - a member of a clan of individuals who consume books and all of the knowledge they hold. Not all book eaters have book eater children. Some are mind eaters who must feast on human minds to sate themselves.

Devon is forced on the run in order to protect her mind eater son. While we learn about Devon's childhood and early years of her adult life, we flash forward to her journey with her son that will leave you wondering what choice she will make and who the real monsters in this story even are.

Book Eaters will be released August 2nd, and if it's not already on your tbr, it should be!
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Special thanks to Macmillan/Tor for sharing an arc with me in exchange for my honest opinions.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for this alc.

I am still trying to process this book so it is going to be difficult to talk about it. I would say it was kind of hard to get into this story but when I did I am glad I could appreciate how unique and interesting this novel is.

The book introduces us to this idea that some supernatural beings came to Earth and put on our planet what are called book eaters. These aliens live off eating books and they retain all the knowledge of the books they eat. Devon is a book eater, and female book eaters like Devon are very rare to find. She grew up eating fairy tales and she is treated like a princess.

In this patriarchal society, women are just vessels for having children because the species is dying out. So they are sold out for marriage, they have a child, they stay for three years and they go back home without their child. Then they need to marry again to have another child. But Devon is trying to break parameters. She doesn’t accept the rules imposed and she will do everything she can to stay with her child.

This book is about so much! It has huge social commentary, it is about feminism, motherhood, about poor decisions, sacrifice, breaking down the patriarchy, and it explores the complexities of love. The audiobook is narrated by Katie Erich who did a fantastic job and I was captivated the entire time.

The Book Eaters is a book for book lovers. It reminds us about the power of love. We move mountains, if necessary, to take care of the ones we love. If you like stories with some elements of thriller, fantasy and gothic horror, you will enjoy this one.

I loved this little dark fairy tale.

M. Night Shyamalan needs to make this a movie!

Devan eats books. She is expected to be married twice & have 2 children. The custom is that she will be removed from her Children’s lives by their 3rd birthday but she has other ideas.

The book has depth. When Devan shares her innermost secret with her 2nd husband’s brother, the book took a new meaning. So many dilemmas take hold when Cai’s born!

This is a vampire story of another kind.

The writing is concise & dialog believable.

Very enjoyable!

Dark and Intriguing urban fantasy. Enjoyed the concept of eating books and actually consuming the knowledge but the best part of the book for me was a flawed mother doing all she can for her son all while dealing with her own issues seemed very genuine. Highly recommend for any fans of urban fantasy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me an audiobook arc of this title.

Rating: 4.5/5⭐️
Pub Day: 8-2-2022

As with most fantasy I’ve read, it took about five or six chapters for me to get fully immersed in the story. The title alone had me intrigued, and as I listened to this intricately woven story of a strong and determined woman who ate books as sustenance, I was slowly won over.

This unique take on monster-like beings is gritty and intense, but at its core is the story of a mother’s love and breaking old patriarchal boundaries. There are some grisly fight scenes and disturbing experiences that might not sit well with everyone, but they were essential to the story and didn’t bother me in the least.

This is the author’s first foray into fantasy and Katie Erich’s narration debut. Kudos to both women—this was a really fun audio!

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the alc in exchange for an honest review.

CW: body horror, gore, explicit violence, domestic abuse, violence against children

I’ve been very intrigued by this book since I first read the premise but I was disappointed when I didn’t get the arc. What nice luck do I have though that I got an audio advance copy just a few days before the release and I devoured this book (pun totally intended) in just a couple of days. But I’m still pondering on my feelings about it.

I can’t deny that the writing is bewitching, the world created by the author is both atmospheric and horrifying, that we are excited to know more but also hate the parts we do get to know. Each chapter is preceded by an epigraph which are quotes from various fairytales and other books and a character’s journals and they do an amazing job of setting up the tone of the upcoming chapter, almost building up to the tension. The story told in alternate timelines also works well in keeping our attention because we wanna know how our main characters ended up in their current situation. While the story is set in our world, our characters feel like they belong to an alternate world because they are so isolated and have their own sets of rules and traditions, and revealing all of it little by little was neatly done by the author. And ofcourse the whole idea of this feeling like a fairytale at times and then the author subverting those familiar tropes was quite fascinating to read.

Undoubtedly though, what’s stays after finishing the book or even while reading is the kinds of questions that arise in our head. The book eater world is very misogynistic and women are rare in their community and treated like “princesses”, but we quickly see that being a princess here also means having absolutely no agency over their lives or bodies, being confined to forced arranged marriages and being vessels for breeding children, and then also being separated from said children at the age of three. It was very hard not to think of the current scenario of abortion rights in the US and how laws are being made every day in states to force women to give birth with no consideration to what they want.

The book eaters/mind eaters are also very much inspired by vampire lore as the author has mentioned many times in interviews and that was another interesting aspect of the story - getting to know vampiric characters in a new light. Most of the characters we encounter here are some form of monsters and once we see their actions and how they came to be that way, we start to wonder if there are good and bad monsters, and if we can really root for some of them.

This is ultimately the story of Devon, her son Cai and how motherhood transforms her life. We see the progression of her arc from being a carefree child who thinks she is a princess to one who realizes she has no freedom to make her choices, including the desire to want to be with her child. Once her son Cai turns out to be a mind eater, she is compelled to run with him for the sake of protecting him from everyone.

She makes choices and decisions one after the other which left me questioning (and her as well) if what she was doing was right and I don’t think we ever get any answers. She loves her son; while his nature might be monstrous, he is an innocent; so she will do whatever it takes to help him live his life. The author really digs deep into the idea that a mother’s love is love - it can’t be defined as good or bad, it just is. I had some trouble getting used to this idea of a mother’s love because while motherhood is always exalted across cultures and it’s always said that a mother will do anything for her child, I’m not a mother and I’ve never felt such maternal instincts ever in my life. While Devon did struggle with what she had to do to feed Cai, she always chose what was necessary for his survival, and I sometimes found it hard to follow along with a character who could kill people and do many other destructive things along the way for her son.

There are other characters in the narrative, some who help Devon and others who hinder her but everyone has some sort of effect on her mindset and her decisions. I don’t wanna talk too much about them but I also think it would have been more interesting to have some of these side characters fleshed out a bit. They have just the necessary amount of interactions with Devon and it sometimes felt like they were all plot devices rather than characters themselves. But it’s also ultimately Devon’s story, so I guess it works fine for the overall narrative.

In the end, I can say this was a dark and engaging horror-fairytale story with a particular emphasis on the role of female agency and motherhood in a highly patriarchal world, and what does it actually mean to be good or bad in a world full of monsters. Whether the book leaves you fascinated or uncomfortable, it’ll hold your attention throughout and keep your mind whirling with more thoughts and questions as the pages go by. I also have to mention the audiobook narrator Katie Erich because she brings a unique voice and richness to this story and while it took me little time to get comfortable with her Northern England accent, it felt perfect for the story and I’m glad I got to listen to it.

What an amazing first book in a series. There are Book Eaters who injest all the knowledge they consume. There are mind eaters….who consume all the knowledge of those who eat.

This is reminiscent of Game of Thrones meets Handmaid’s Tale…and I cannot wait for the second installment!

Wow, I don’t know what to say. This book explores how far a mother would go for her child, one others see as a monster, and it does so with unflinching prose and dark but enchanting settings. The parallels between Grendel and his mother bring forth the question: who really is the monster? There were parts that made me grimace, parts that made my heart hurt, but I loved it. Incredible

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book was one of the most creative I’ve read in a long time. The concept of book eaters gaining the knowledge of the book when consumed was really cool. And then there are the mind eaters who keeps a little part of those they consume. The main character is on a quest to save her son after having lost her daughter in this dystopian world where females are mated for primarily for breeding only to have their children taken from them. I enjoyed this story and because it’s not an idea I’ve met before, I had no real expectation of what the author was going to do with the characters—how they were going to interact with each other, and what would need to happen to “save the day.” I delighted in the journey of discovery. I was rooting for the main characters even with the moral dilemmas they faced. There were no perfectly good or perfectly bad characters. This is a well-anticipated book release, and I’m so glad I was given the opportunity to review it with NetGalley.

When I got this book, I was so excited because a rather Gothic horror that reads like a vampire novel but has book eaters and mind eaters instead. Yes, please! I was not disappointed. Sunyi's writing is beautiful and the settings equally so.

I am impressed that this is a debut. Sunyi captures setting and emotion so well. There were times that I wanted to cry alongside our main character. Often times I've said that I find it hard to get invested in characters because their struggle isn't all that bad. Yet, here, I was fully invested in every step of the story. I'm not sure if it is because the MC was a mother or that everything she did was for her children but it hit me hard.

I am a plot driven reader so this is where the book lost me a little bit. It has a few moments where the story falls off but it was never long enough to make me lose interest.

I also loved the different types of books discussed. Having studied literature, it was great to see it presented this way. All the little nuisances in the "substance" of books consumed made me chuckle and think. Really a great way to discuss the books contents in a different way and still be quite interesting.

Sadly I DNF this. I got 40% into to it and just felt like it wasn't going anywhere with me. I just wasn't connecting with the characters or the storyline. The world building was very confusing to me.

In this world there are those who survive on the books. The words literally feed them and they can absorb knowledge simply by eating a book, pamphlet, etc.

These families live apart from humans and adhere to strict traditions meant to keep the population going. But these traditions severely limit the freedoms of women and separate mothers and children.

The traditions also keep a tight control over those among their community who instead of living off written words, live off the minds of others.

Devon grew up a beloved princess in his childhood home, but chafes still the requirement to marry multiple times and leave her children each time.

She makes a plan to do what it takes to protect her children - even at great cost.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books/Macmillan Audio for the digital galley and ALC of this book.

They look like us. They live among us, but they are not us. Book Eaters live secluded in four families. While her brothers grew up eating stories of adventure and preparing to run The Family one day, Devon was fed fairy tales and prepped for being a wife and birth mother. having children is difficult for member of The Family, and girls are a rarity. When they take her daughter from her and banish her son, who was born a “dragon,” a brain eater instead of a book eater, Devon will do whatever she has to in order to keep her son safe and away from those who would hurt and exploit him.

If you’re looking for a very new twist on vampires, definitely check this one out. For anyone who has ever devoured a book, loving it so much they actually want to eat it, this story will captivate you. It’s the raw story of a mother who would do anything for her children, even at the expense of her own sanity and livelihood. I consumed it at a rapid pace and loved Devon’s metamorphosis from innocent child to pawn in a man’s game to a ruthless mother who refused to take garbage from anyone. It’s a journey many girls and women take, though hopefully with less blood.

This one is out now wherever you get your books and audiobooks.

The concept of this one is so interesting. I'm sad I ended up having to add this one to my DNF pile for now. I got to about 30% and just couldn't do the narrator anymore. Her accent is so strong and I hard a hard time understanding her at times. I plan on getting the physical copy and giving this one another shot in that format. Thank you netgalley for the opportunity to try this out!

I am completely blown away by the fact that this is a debut novel!!!!! Bravo Sunyi Dean! I wanted so badly to be a part of this book. I will however, be eternally grateful that The Book Eaters will always be a part of me. This book was beautifully written. The plot is exceptional. I was IMMEDIATELY sucked in. I enjoyed the audio version and very much look forward to adding a physical copy to my collection. Once I started listing to this book I could not stop. I didn’t take my AirPods until the last words were read to me. The book Eaters is riveting! Dark, emotional, and absolutely unputdownable.

4.5 Stars

The Book Eaters is one of the most inventive and truly engrossing fantasy novels I've read in a while. This story takes readers on a whirlwind deep dive into the world of the book eaters and all that that life entails, which was much darker and more dangerous than I expected. I didn't know exactly what I was getting into based on the premise of The Book Eaters, but I think it was more than I bargained for in all the best ways.

Devon Fairweather is a princess among the Fairweather family of book eaters at Fairweather Manor. Her role as a female daughter means that she is raised consuming only fairy tales and similar tales in order to prepare her for her role as future wife and mother to continue on the line of book eaters. The problem, you see, is that book eaters are dying. They are a species slowly running out of time and lines in the family tree, so daughters are of utmost importance in carrying on the family line, and arranged marriages are a must and are carefully planned out. Devon, however, finds this pattern abhorrent and seeks her own escape from the book eater families to carve out a life with her son, Cai, who would otherwise be taken away from her to live with a different book eater family while she would be sent off to another marriage and pregnancy.

Book eaters are a species that appear as human, but are not actually human. Rather than subsisting on food and water, they exist solely off of a diet of books. What they eat is what they know, and different types of books actually do have different types and preferences (glossy pages, for instance, are not as nice to eat as regular pages). Occasionally, book eaters give birth to children who do not have a penchant for eating books, but rather for eating the minds of humans, and Devon's son is one of these.

Devon is a fascinating character and her role as a mother who will stop at nothing to make sure her child survives the best he can makes her utterly compelling for me. Devon has to make a lot of truly difficult decisions, probably some of the hardest decisions someone might have to make, both for herself and in order to ensure the survival of her son. To what extent is she willing to make sacrifices for her child, and along with that, is there any point at which the cost of survival and protecting your child is too far?

The Book Eaters alternates chapters between the present, when Devon and Cai are on the run trying to survive, and the past, from Devon's childhood into young adulthood and her marriages and pregnancies. I thought the pacing worked well with this format and I liked getting to explore both timelines in evenly written bursts that kept me hooked, but never overwhelmed with information or any one particular setting.

This book has a lot of dark moments that I didn't really expect, but that fit extremely well with the overall tone and themes explored throughout (as you can probably guess from how I've described things so far). There's a lot to unpack, and I appreciated that Dean took the time to explore a lot of different themes and ideas through her storytelling and watching the characters adapt to and learn to survive in their environments. I particularly appreciated the theme around love in that it's not always good or beautiful, that sometimes love is ugly and bad and is the reason why we do bad things. I loved exploring this type of love and everything it entails.

Sunyi Dean packed a huge punch with this book. I listened to an early copy of the audiobook and loved the narrator, Katie Erich. She did a truly fantastic job with this one and I think she fit the atmosphere of the story perfectly and captured all of the characters in a very real and fitting manner. There was a brief Q&A between Sunyi Dean and Katie Erich at the end of the audiobook and I thought including that was a great choice because I feel like it really helped me get more out of the story and learn a bit more about Dean's thoughts and processes behind her story-building. I also loved hearing her and the narrator's opinions on Devon and other aspects of the story.

Overall, I highly recommend this dark, inventive story that will keep you constantly wondering what Sunyi Dean will throw at readers next. I really enjoyed the audiobook version of this and think it will be a great story in all mediums (which makes me think–how cool would a graphic novel of this book be??). I am really excited to see what the future holds for Sunyi Dean and her work!

The Book Eaters was on my most anticipated releases of 2022 and while it wasn't quite what I expected, I really enjoyed the unusual ride. First, I'll say that I did this one on audiobook and the narrator has a very distinct English accent, it took a bit of time to adjust to. The story itself was less about book eating, which was a really fun premise, and more about the survival of the species and the care of the aberrant mind eaters. The fantasy elements were really unique and I enjoyed immersing myself in them. The survival of the species bit was a little too Handmaid's Tale for me but the rest was all really original.

Devon is a female book eater, which is quite rare. She has a daughter who is taken from her and vows with her next child to not allow tradition to define her life. But her son is different, he is a mind eater and must kill to satiate his hunger. She fights the patriarchy and the old ruling families and goes on the run to save him. They need a stock of a medication that allows him to eat books like her and a safe place to hide. We go with them as they search for safety and freedom.

The best part about this story is the world building, I really loved how it all came together. The characters grew on me with time, I think both Devon and Kai were a little self-centered and grating at first but in the end I was really rooting for them. I would love another story in this world!

Thanks to Macmillian Audio via Netgalley for access to this novel. All opinions above are my own.

First I want to say I was really lucky to get an audio arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review and that didn't effect my rating or opinions on this book.

This book has managed to get me out of a major reading slump and has somewhat widened the horizons of books that I will read by being a great gateway to horror/mystery for people who are used to reading a lot of fantasy.

This book is doing a lot of things all at once and is succeeding at all of them in my opinion. The world building is insanely good and you can understand the culture that surrounds the reclusive book eaters practically right away through a younger Devon's eyes while still knowing that another shoe will drop and she'll be on the run with her son at some point.

It also manages to be a masterful take on motherhood and women's place in their world. Everything that Devon is told from a young age, the book she's allowed to eat (I'll get to that), and the way the adults in her life instruct and discus traditions paints a fascinating and dystopian patriarchy that you can't wait for Devon to escape but know that it will be a long time until it does.

Now for the book eating- the descriptions of the way that a fairy tale tastes sweet, Dante's Inferno tastes like charcoal that needs to be spit out and in place of punishment Devon is made to eat Dictionary paper. This is clearly so so thought out from a world building perspective and as a metaphor for the importance of books and information as a form of propaganda and in turn rebellion- especially considering that reading anything is incredibly taboo among Book Eater's.

There is also the mother son relationship that a lot of this book hinges on and it does it well all while making Kai utterly unsettling because no matter what he's a five year old with the minds of all the adults he's eaten the minds of.

All in all I highly recommend reading or listening to this book!

This is a unique and intriguing fantasy story. I love the worldbuilding and the commentary on motherhood and the patriarchy. I was never sure where the story was going to go and had to keep listening.