Thank you so much, NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, for the chance to listen to this audiobook in exchange of an honest review.

TW: abuse, violence, death

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a family for whom books are food and they can retain all the book's knowledge. In a complex and ancient system, Devon is part of the Family, an old and reclusive clan of book-eaters and while her brother and the other men of the house can live on stories of adventure, the book eaters women are raised on fairytales and cautionaries stories. Devon lives like a princess, coddled and protected, unable to feel cold or warmth, believing ther family's stories and lies about growing up and the world outside with its humans. But when she's forced to become a mother and her daughter is taken away from her, Devon has to open her eyes to the brutal reality surrounding her. When her other son is born a mind-eater, eating mind to survive, Devon decides she will do anything in her power to save him from a cruel destiny and escape, looking for their freedom. But nothing is simple, expecially for a book eater woman, in a patriarchal world where its men are hunters or hurters of women.

The Book Eaters is one of the best book I've ever read in a very long time. A contemporary fantasy debut, the author wrote a complex and cruel world with a strong female character as main one ready to do anything in order to survive and protect her loved one. A intriguing and fascinating feminist story, with a phenomenal magical system. Six Families of book eaters, scattered across different region of Britain, where book eaters women are rare and protected, used and abused and forced to breed in order to continue their legacy.
Coddled and treated like a princess, Devon doesn't understand the harsh reality surrounding her, not until she's forced to marry and lose her first daughter. In a world where women are literally hunted, beaten and tortured, Devon has to survive in her own way, but the threat of losing another child changes everything for her.

The story is brilliant and the plot swings between past and present. The reader is able to know Devon first as a young mother and then to understand her past, traumas and losses, following her growth, with difficult choices, abuses and violence. It's a powerful story of motherhood, sacrifices and hope, of queer identity, freedom and learning to love and accept who you are in a world designed to crush you into its mold. Costant the contrast between the brilliant lies fed to a child Devon and the cruel and true world where she now lives, forced to difficult alliances, fearing for her son, ready to do anything in order to protect him. It's a story about fierce and desperate love, hope and rage with a main character simply fantastic.
Devon is complex, smart and forced to adapt in very different situations, with her abilities and strength. She's a mother, desperate to save her son Cai, a young woman fighting against a narrative she was forced to eat and believe, fighting for the right to choose for herself, to escape in a world where book eaters, but mostly women, can be able to decide for themselves.

Cruelly realistic the world created, where book eaters women don't have any control on their own bodies, forced to breed and give up their daughters and sons, daughter that will be forced to do the same and sons to become hunters or hurters of women. In a world where queer love does exist, but it's hidden in order to continue the legacy, Devon lived a sheltered life, lied to, manipulated and gaslighted in order to be better controlled and only through traumas and abuses she manages to open her eyes and to fight back. In a world where men are, very often, cruel and abusive, like her father, brother and two husbands, only Jarrow, her brother-in-law, is a positive figure.

Incredible, layered and intriguing is the relationship between Devon and Cai, mother and son, bond together by love, sacrifices, forced to do difficult choices in a long line of losses, murders and mistakes. Realistic, powerful and intimate is the love bonding them. Brilliant and sweet the bond between Devon and Jarrow and Devon and Hester.

I can't never recommend this book enough. It's intriguing, brilliant, moving and heartwrenching, filled with pain and hope, maternal and queer love and I loved everything.

I'm not sure if it was that I had a hard time understanding the narrator at times or if the story just wasn't for me, but I DNF at 30%. I found myself tuning out the Audio so frequently, it was a lot of info dumping in the beginning.

I'll give the actual book a try when its released because the premise is so intriguing and the majority of the reviews are positive. Sometimes audiobooks aren't the best option for me when the story is so unique, with a ton of information up front. I need the pages in front of me.

With not finishing the book I don't feel comfortable giving a star rating so I will leave this at 4 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for a preview copy of this audiobook. I had some trouble following the story at first due to all of the time jumps but once I got into the rhythm, I really enjoyed Devon's story. This story has a main character who is dealing with the pressures of tradition conflicting with her own emotions and life plans. She is a mother who wants to make her family something that her larger clan does not allow. She has to fight for that while caring for her son and meeting new people. Can she trust these new people?

I was intrigued my this book because of the cover and synopsis. A horror about a group of people who eat books, but a child born to eat minds. Unfortunately I had to dnf this book at 25% I was expecting more action and death and instead got a Thriller with a commentary on lotherhood and an oppressive cult. I didn't care about Devon's past and her relationships or her struggles with motherhood if her son wasn't directly in the story. I did like how the chapters started with quotes from other books. I loved the descriptions of how different books tasted. I enjoyed her son's struggles and how she had to find people for him to survive. I just wish it was the horror it was marketed as.

***5 Stars***

Overall,
I will be thinking about this book for a long time. I am not usually one for books with single mothers or books where the children of the main characters are the reason for any tension or problems. Its just not my thing and I usually end up DNFing the book strictly because of it. With that said, the main character of this book is a single mom and the child is one of the main driving forces behind the various problems that occur within the book, however never once did it bother me. I think perhaps that this is because the child does not really behave, nor talk like a child. The reason Devan, our main character, is doing what she is doing, is for Kai, her son, but it all makes sense. I am probably not explaining this well but in truth the entire concept of this book overcame a pretty big “NO thanks” type of book for me and even more so I rated it 5 stars because it is just sooo good.
Devan is a Book Eater. She eats books for sustenance, kind of like how a vampire would drink blood. She grew up in one of the 6 families and has been taught her entire life that she is a “princess” and that one day she will be “married” to ensure the continuation of their species. As a child she was mainly given fairy tales to read. When she grows up she learns what being a female Book Eater truly means and she no longer trusts those she once called family. From all of that, this book is beautifully woven switching to child/teen/young adult Devan to current day Devan.

Audio,
Ok, so at first, I really did not care for the narrator, who is from Northern England with a stronger accent then the normal London English audio narrators. However, after a bit, Katie Erich really feels like the voice of Devan, and from then on out it really just felt right. It was jarring because its not the usual type of voice that I am used to listening to but it really started to grow on me because her voice just sounds so much like how I feel Devan would sound. In addition, at the end of the Audiobook, Sunyi has an interview with Katie that discuss how that narration was done and it was really good to hear about some of the decisions made. In the end I really enjoyed this on audio.

Cover,
I have seen two covers of this book the US and the UK version, I like both and honestly haven’t decided which one I want to physically purchase because they are booth really interesting.

Recommendation
This is an adult fantasy horror book. It does have some triggering concepts that I would suggest you look up before reading. I would recommend this to anyone interested in this particular genre, anyone who likes dark fantasy, anyone who likes vampires and honestly probably anyone who will listen to me. I do not know if there will be a sequel. The ending felt like it could be the ending but there are a few things left open that could definitely be made into a sequel. (I can only hope!)

***I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley, Mcmillian Audio and Tor Books, in exchange for my free and honest review. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book early #BookEater #NetGalley ***

The idea of Dean’s The Book Eaters is intriguing, but there was overall too much going on in the book to really enjoy it.

This is one of my favorite audiobooks of the year, for many reasons. I loved the narration (listened to at 1.5x) and was so delighted to learn about the neurodivergent representation (in the choice of narrator, the author herself, and--in part--the characters) through the bonus interview at the end. In fact, I loved everything about that interview and wish all audiobooks had something similar. It was great to hear some of the author's intentions and thoughtful questions right after I finished the book and had begun ruminating over the themes myself. I was fascinated to learn that this was the narrator's first time narrating (she did a fantastic job, I thought) and was intrigued to hear about her process/approach as well.

I thought the world-building unraveled at a good pace and I appreciated the context provided by journals and other books, inserted as chapter-openers. This take on vampires is so interesting and unique that I didn't even make the connection that book eaters were essentially vampires until...very late in the book. Devon's insightful moments are strong and evocative--I was emotional every time she reconsidered her moral dilemmas, her conflicted feelings about family, and the nature of love. I was very satisfied by the abrupt ending and the lack of a neat, tidy happy ending--as the author mentions in her interview, there are no right choices, best options, or happy endings for Devon and Cai. But it was not an ending without hope for real love, a chance at life, and enduring kinship with a chosen family. There's a lot to love about this book--the genre mix, the setting, the voice, the prose, the body horror, the queer love story, the dual timelines, etc. I devoured this book (irresistible joke) and will be recommending it widely.

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book. THIS BOOK. I don’t even know how to begin this review. I guess I’ll start off by saying that this isn’t something I’d usually pick for myself, but I’m really glad I did. To begin, Dean’s writing is simply exquisite. I was immediately drawn in by how lovely and raw the prose was. I want to read EVERYTHING Dean writes, even if it’s just a description of paint drying, that’s how beautiful their writing is.

Secondly, this is one of the most unique plots I’ve ever read. Upon skimming the description, I wasn’t sure how this would actually play out — people who eat books instead of food? Mind eaters? I’ve never seen anything like it and I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out, but it was one of the most interesting and captivating plots I’ve ever seen.

Dean effortlessly goes from past to present in order to show us how Devon got where she is, and it was done so well. I also LOVED the ending — one of my biggest complaints is when books that are tense and full of trauma end too happily. While there was a sense of relief at the end of this book, it wasn’t a cliche happily ever after. There are still many challenges ahead for the characters, but also a hint of hope. I just think it’s so beautiful. I’ll definitely be recommending this to everyone.

The Book Eaters is a debut dark urban fantasy novel with horror elements by Sunyi Dean. The ebook version is 304 pages. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at thirteen and a half hours and is narrated by Katie Erich.

Devon was born into a secretive clan of people who consume books and retain their contents after eating. Known as book eaters, several familial lines around England banded together and are known as The Family. Girls are rarely born, and are fed a diet full of fairytales, cautionary stories, and dictionaries. Boys, on the other hand, feat on stories filled with valor and adventure. When Devon's son is born not as a book eater, but a mind eater--a rarer and darker kind of hunger than her own--she realizes that she must reevaluate her ideas on motherhood, morality, and sacrifice.

This was a really interesting book, and I absolutely love the cover. The world-building is pretty expansive and the many characters are all complex people. The concept of book eaters and The Family is a cool and modern take on vampirism. The oppression of female book eaters does reflect how women in real life have been oppressed in the past and the present in some countries.

We jump back and forth between different timelines, so if you prefer a straight-forward narrative this may not be for you. In my opinion, the author did a great job interspersing the stories from Devon's past to help explain what was happening in her present. The ending felt very abrupt to me. There is an interview between the author and audiobook narrator at the end of the book, and apparently there's an epilogue for the Waterstones edition. So I've preordered it to read that!

This is a pretty strong debut and I'm excited to read more from Sunyi Dean in the future.

Tropes: sapphic main character, sapphic side character, asexual side character, disabled side character

CW: emotional abuse, gaslighting, physical abuse, misogyny, arranged/forced marriage, body horror, gore, death, murder, firearms

Special thanks to Tor, Macmillan, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for providing an audio galley of this book for me to review. All opinions contained herein are my own.

Book received for free through NetGalley

I absolutely adored this audiobook. I was quickly caught up in it and found it hard to turn it off. Felt for the characters and all their hard choices and I was rooting for a happy ending for the end but kind of like and understand the more open endedness it has.

Also I love the talk between the author and narrator at the end. Apparently there’s an epilogue in one version of the book. Not sure if I’d search that out or not as I think I like the ending how it is.

Thanks for writing it.

I was given an Arc copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was a breath of fresh air and so different from anything else out there right now. It was very dark and gothic which I loved!

It did take me a little while to get into this book but once I did I thoroughly enjoyed it but it’s not a light read…it’s very deep and tackles a lot of deep issues.

In this book we follow Devon who is a Book Eater (part of a supernatural race of people who eat books and take their knowledge)and her son who is a Mind Eater…and they are on the run.

I would highly recommend this book and will be buying a physical copy for my shelf!

Advanced Reader’s Copy audiobook provided by NetGalley, and Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean and narrated by Katie Erich was a phenomenal experience. Erich’s performance perfectly highlighted the right accents, and added so much richness to each character.

The Book Eaters is an amazing blend of dark and urban fantasy. This is the perfect novel for those who love fantasy, but also fiction readers who like darker stories with strong female characters, and LGBT representation will appreciate this story.

Within the Book Eaters, Dean creates the complex and patriarchal society of the Book Eaters. They live mostly separate from humans but need to eat their books to survive. Book Eater girls are extremely rare, and are raised in fairytales to keep them in place. Even as a child, Devon had always had a stubbornness and resiliency against these rules. As an adult, she will do anything to protect her children and to break away from this system.

I am very hopeful that this story will continue to complete Salem’s story, but also to check back in with my favorite characters in this book! I will likely be reading any further work that this author releases.

content warning (provided by the author): body horror, gore, explicit violence, domestic abuse, violence against children.

I receive this book from the publisher through netgalley.com I am voluntarily leaving this review.

The idea of this book made me jump at it and the cover is fantastic. This story has so many levels to it I am finding it hard to even review. The world that Dean has created with a species that feeds on books and can retain the information they ingest and the darker mutation of them more like vampires they feed on brains and can then retain memories and mannerisms of the people they consume is complex and brilliant. A new take on mutants or vampires this fantasy has so much to offer.

Devon has been raised to believe she is a princess - cared for and only given fairy tales to consume. Fairy tales of princesses falling in love and getting married. But Book Eaters are dying out. Their women are not always fertile and so the ones that are, are bartered and handed over for "marriage" for a period of 3 years where the object is to conceive a child preferably a girl - after 3 years the child is left with the family and the mother is taken away to remarry and do it all over again. Not at all like the fairy tales Devon has been consuming. Not to mention that Devon prefers the company of women.

After her first marriage and losing her daughter Devon is determined to change the system. But Book Eaters can't create, their imaginations are only as deep as what they consume. During her 2nd marriage she meets a man who shares her desire for a different life and together they hatch a plan but its dangerous and there are many sacrifices to be made along the way.

This really is a book about creating your own destiny and not being swayed by what is expected. It is a reminder that you can achieve anything but sometimes sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. I think this book will stick with me for a long time. There is so much to digest! I can see this being an excellent book club book since there is just so much to talk about.

The narration was excellent, the story well written and original.

The Book Eaters certainly wasn’t what I was expecting it to be. This was not the definitive factor in my final rating, but I do feel the synopsis is misleading. I went in thinking Devon’s new reality with a mind eating son was an anomaly and that this defect would build into an unsettling horror. But Devon’s son was not terribly unique in the world built by Sunyi Dean and the story was more fantasy than horror. While there were horrific elements, it lacked the terror I longed for, but I was initially fairly invested in the setup.

This book, by no means, crumbled as it continued, but I found myself less engaged as time went on. It was clearly a well thought out narrative and the writing was divinely descriptive. However, there was a coldness to all of the characters, including Devon, that made it difficult for me to really feel for anyone or believe in their feelings for each other. I also felt certain parts were too drawn out.

That being said, I did love The Handmaid’s Tale vibe with a fantastical twist. I think the statements the story aims to make are critical and timely. I’d definitely recommend it to my hardcore fantasy friends, expecting they’ll love it more than I did.

I am immensely grateful to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my audio review copy. All opinions are my own.

Moving-- I came into this story anticipating a whimsical narrative about people who eat books. Instead it's about the limits and dangers of love, forgiveness and responsibility, addiction and fear, and perseverance in the face of near hopelessness. It raises questions about whether we can ever be saved from the thingd that change us and is deeply feminist.

The Book Eaters seemed like a very interesting listen. A different kind of monster that consumes books and immediately memorized the book. But then you have mind eaters that consume something else. Interesting right?

Unfortunately, I was unable to connect with the character and the narrator, Katie Erich didn’t pull me into the story. The inflections used, remained the same throughout many scenes.

It’s very descriptive and interesting there are two different timelines. It’s not confusing, it just didn’t hold my attention unfortunately.

Special thanks to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

This book was one of the best I've read so far this year, and I'm not going to downplay how much I loved it at all! The writing and world-building were fully immersive, the characters were all complex and interesting, and Sunyi Dead perfectly balanced both the past and present storylines extremely well.

I also really like how fleshed-out the Book Eaters' society is, and how well it reflects many of the ways women in real life have been oppressed--despite Book Eaters thinking they're superior to humankind--and how even the sympathetic male Book Eaters didn't really understand how the way the women were treated was a bad thing (that was probably a little too realistic for comfort).

I also really like how much of this book is really thought-provoking and encourages you to think about the ethics and morality of pretty much every part of Book Eater lives, and how that compares to human lives--and doing that on top of a solid plot is even more impressive!

I was granted complimentary audio ARC access to The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean through the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for the approval! My thoughts are my own and my review is honset.

The Book Eaters is a dark urban fantasy about a human-adjacent species living within but separate from the modern world. Somewhat like vampires of knowledge, they consume written knowledge and satiate their bodies simultaneously by eating books. Fascinating, right? Well, two stumbling points. First, fertile women are married and re-married multiple times in order to produce children, which they are weaned from and forced to leave with their fathers upon turning 3 years old. Second, sometimes sons born to these families require an entirely different sort of sustenance...

If you've ever wondered what might happen if you put a reimagined type of vampires into the world of The Handmaid's Tale, this would be it. It's dark and emotionally disturbing in a lot of the same ways, it provides commentary on other repressed groups within society (particularly LGBTQIA+ identities,) and it follows a POV character who wants to break tradition and keep her babies for herself.

I will say this book absolutely does not delivery the story the first edition cover art is selling. The first edition cover at, in the North American market at least, shows two people and a house cut out of the printed pages of a book and the feeling is very whimsical. Very Neverland. The synopsis paired with this cover is simply not enough warning for how dark the material actually is, and I worry that some potential readers will end up not finishing because they were only up for something lighter. Fortunately for the publishers, I like dark fantasy as well!

Narrator Katie Erich does a good job of conveying the story in a pace that is easy to listen to. I'm a fast listener, so I can tell you confidently that this book is absolutely comfortable to listen to at faster speeds, but I did sample at 1x to truly get a feel for this narrator as well. If I were a slower listener, or if I wanted to just enjoy this book as a re-read in the background, I would absolutely be able to listen to this at 1x without feeling like the pauses were too long or anything like that. The book is all one POV but we do occasionally get dialogue passages where speakers aren't individually tagged each time, and I was able to follow those conversations easily.

Got off to a bit of a slow and Rocky start for me. The back and forth through time storytelling does not serve the first half of the book well, making it a choppy read with little forward momentum.

But, around the halfway point, the various stories all begin to come together in a satisfying way that works well. I very much enjoyed the concept of people who feed off the creativity of humanity but unable to create new things themselves. The idea of a culture completely built on nothing but the written word, when for so many centuries the written words only came from men, is told in an interesting and fresh way.

As for body horror and gore, it is definitely there, but those aren't things I generally enjoy yet was able to get through quite easily for the most part here. The scariest parts of this book weren't the deaths, it were the Patriarchy.

The audio has an excellent interview at the end between the author and the narrator which I found very interesting and informative. I wish I'd known it was there when I was at the 90% mark and sweating about how things must be about to go horribly wrong if there were that much story left to tell 😅

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this excellent ARC

There exists a group of people in Northern England whose sustenance is the written word; they live off eating books and retain the knowledge from the texts they consume. Devon is one of these people, born and raised in a society where women are few and are protected at all costs, even to their detriment. She’s raised on a diet of fairytales and happy endings, but as she grows older, she realizes that these books are far from reality. As she struggles with the realities of her life, she begins to wonder if it’s possible to break free from what she’s always known.

This was a unique and interesting modern take on vampirism, weaving in elements of gothic-horror to create an immersive atmospheric experience. I enjoyed the setting descriptions and worldbuilding, both of which were descriptive and well written. The author excelled at creating the book eater culture and their politics and infighting.

Devon was a realistic and relatable protagonist. I enjoyed the depth of her character and her personal conflicts and struggles. The author used chapters as flashbacks into Devon’s childhood, which made it easy to see how she ended up where she did, and what decisions and struggles led her there. I enjoyed that Devon was a morally grey character who did whatever she needed to for her true family. This led to some fascinating conflict and decisions that added real depth to the stories and the characters. The secondary characters were all well written and were mostly not morally “good,” making a great backdrop for Devon. I also loved the atypical mother/son relationship that was the focus of this work.

There are many intense and dark occurrences in this work – it is not a light read. These include emotional and physical abuse, murder, abusive relationships, and deep culturally ingrained misogyny. But the work also explores themes of motherhood, chosen family, and identity in a way that adds to the characters and story.

I listened to the audiobook version of this work, and the narrator did an excellent job at bringing the characters to life. Overall, I recommend this work to those who are interested in dark fantasy and the themes mentioned above. My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to read and review this book, which will be published on August 2, 2022. All opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are my own.