E-Book, 300 Pages
Adult/ Fantasy/ Horror
By: Sunyi Dean
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟 3/4
“None of us are truly good,” the vicar said, at last. He put a hand on her shoulder, so gently, so kindly, and she almost threw up on the spot. “All we can do is live by the light we are given.”
“Some of us don’t have any light,” Devon said. “How are we supposed to live, then?”
I think every single person who ever read a boo thought “Why can’t we just eat books and retain their contents?” and that is the premise of The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean. As soon as I saw the synopsis I knew it was a book that I was gonna read and I did that as soon as it was released.
In this world, there are humans like us but there are other type of creatures who look like us but have the ability to eat books and on the other extreme there are those who happen to be mind-eaters which is a self-explanatory term. Devon our protagonist is a book eater and her son is a mind eater and we follow her trying t protect her son at all costs.
Writing wise the book was good. I did not have any problems following it. I think there were a lot of genres mashed up together in this book: It is an adult fantasy book, the story is mostly a thriller one with elements of horror (I thought I was the only one who got those vibes but 162 users shelved it as horror on GR so I think it is true).
My main problem with the book were my own expectations based on the synopsis. I thought there will be more book eating content but it focuses more on mind eaters. I thought the world-building would be a bit more creative when it comes to this book eating thing but the synopsis explains the gist of this ability. I thought there would be more fantasy elements with sociology commentary but it was more of a run story with thriller elements.
I liked the writing style and that we got both flashback chapters and then chapters in the current story and they were woven in alternative way making the story shine more at some points. I also liked the quotes at the beginning of each chapter some of which are from our own world and some are from a historian in that world explaining how the world works. All of this made the characters more fleshed out and relatable. I think the ending was nice too given how it works both as an ending to the book but with a potential to write more books in the future -albeit it being a bit rushed at the end-
Summary: The Book Eaters was an enjoyable read with great ideas that were almost used to their full potential. The writing style is smart and the characters are well written. I think I just went into it expecting a few different things but it was still a nice read.
The book prescription 