The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean (Adult Fantasy Horror Novel Review)

The Book Eaters
by Sunyi Dean
Published by Tor Books
on August 2, 2022
Genre: Adult, Fantasy, Horror
Length: 298 pages

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Synopsis:
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack, and romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries. 

Devon is a part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon--like all other book-eater women--is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories. 

But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger--not for books, but for human minds. 


My Thoughts:

Devon Fairweather lives a rare and secretive life as a book eater, able to consume literature and retain the knowledge within, like her ancestors before her. Being born a woman book eater in The Family is rare and Devon is raised to accept her place as a wife and mother, all of these decisions predetermined for her. Even rarer are the Mind Eaters--born of book eaters--who hunger for and consume human minds, and when Devon's own son exhibits this ravenous thirst, she must fight to protect him and herself from the world. 

This was my first finished read of 2023 and I really, really enjoyed it. 
There's a little bit of everything I love in here, from fantasy and fairytales to mystery, a little mayhem, and dark, mind-bending horror.

If I had to compare this to anything, it would be a mix-up of the Underworld films and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood with an extra bookish twist. 
The Underworld films because the book is a unique way of reimagining vampires, as divulged by the author in an interview (at the end of the audiobook, which I listened to as I read a physical copy of the book), and The Handmaid's Tale because the Family is a cult-like sect of book eaters that control the lives, marriages, and reproduction of their women-folk. 

The MC, Devon, is one of my new favorite female characters. There is a fierce strength and determination to her that only a mother who is attempting to protect her offspring could have but I also loved how introspective and reflective she was as a character, always tying her life to the fairytales and other stories she has devoured throughout life. I suppose, in this way, I felt I could relate to her. 

There is some lgbtqia+ rep in here, but mostly only mentioned in a conversation between the MC and a side character that is only mentioned once or twice. 

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys bookish literature, magical realism, or anything on the darker side.

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