This is a dark, compelling story of oppression, betrayal and a mother’s love.

The worldbuilding is rich and fascinating with a social system of ‘eater families, ‘knight’ enforcers and ‘dragons’ – those born to eat minds instead of ink and paper. And while the heart of the story revolves around patriarchal oppression, familial drama and fantasy, it definitely verges on the side of horror at times, especially when it came to details like Devon feeding ‘good’ humans to her son to try to preserve his childhood.

In fact, this becomes a central question within the narrative: what compromises would you be willing to make in your values in order to protect or save those you love?

While the ending here resolves some of the conflict within Devon’s world, there were also threads left trailing with a tantalising potential for a sequel. After all, Devon has more than one child to save and many, many more wrongs to right… or avenge.

This was not the book I expected it to be when I read it and I loved it so much more for this. I loved the dual timeline and narrative style of the book and the storyline was gripping from start to finish.

The premise drew me in with this one and I didn't want it to end. I would highly recommend this book.

Difficult to explain, easy to recommend, an impact worth experiencing. This modern take on vampirism tackles sexism through a morally grey protagonist while building a culture filled with politics and dark tactics.

Loved the uniqueness of the story and fantasy world. A woman's life in the time of suppression and oppression without any empowerment is captured well. In a morally grey world with survival and saving her son being the goals, the main character goes to every extreme without remorse. But, she failed to make any sort of relationship throughout the book. Even with her son she hardly has any conversation. And then there is a one line of romance at the last chapter which could've been handled far better. Except that, this is one of the best books.

I love a story about a mother and child kind of dynamics especially if the story has an interesting premise. People who eat books is a hook that will get any book lover to pick up this book.
The Book Eaters is a stunning debut by Sunyi Dean. The story follows Devon, a very grey character that borders on likeable and unlikeable for me. She is the last remaining members of a family of book eaters. The book is dual timelines where one is the present day, and we see Devon with her son who are living in hiding trying to stay away from her family. They are on the run following the events of her husband's death and the suspicious circumstances of this. One of the key themes is the sacrifices a mother will make for her children. It also tackles the trauma of forced marriage and at times feels very much like the Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood especially as the mothers are forced to abandon their children on their third birthday.

I would say this is a good book that needs to be recognized more. Such a fun horror fantasy story with impressionable characters.

I loved the premise of this book - people who eat books, what could be more relatable to a reader?

The MC is great, she's feisty, independent, and one of the most morally grey characters I've ever read. I really felt for her as a mother and for all of the things that she has to deal with in such a patriarchal, misogynistic world.

The dark and gothic aesthetic sets a great tone for the book and the medium pace keeps things moving. I love that the author chose to make this book a contemporary fantasy, as the backdrop of modern society really helps to juxtapose what the book eaters do and how strange and unusual they are.

I love that this book features a sapphic relationship, I just wish that it was a bit more developed as the connection felt a bit strained. Truthfully, a lot of the relationships felt strained and I really struggled to have any empathy or connection for the characters, which means that I lost interest in the story at times and had a hard time getting into it.

The pacing was a bit slower than what I typically enjoy but it was enough to keep me engaged and reading until the end.

Overall, I think the book fell a little flat for me as I would have liked more from the characters and from the book eaters themselves, and felt like I was ultimately left with more questions than answers at the end.

This is a slow-burn of a book, one that starts slow and then hits you full on with stakes and feelings and can't-put-down-ness when you're least expecting it. The premise of book-eating families and their occasional brain-eating offspring was intriguing from the outset, though I have to say I was expecting a gothic, Victorian-era style setting rather than modern day and that threw me for a little while.

The main character, Devon, is not a likeable person. She does horrible things, and knows it, but feels she has been backed into a corner where she has no other choice if she and her son are going to survive. The book is in dual timelines so we see Devon in the present - morally grey, ruthless, in survival mode and on the run from her people's enforcers - and also Devon growing from an isolated, restricted childhood into a young adult and all the choices (few of which were truly her own) that led to where she is now. The timelines are interwoven so cleverly that you build sympathy and understanding for Devon in tandem with her mysteries and secrets being gradually revealed. There's double and triple crosses, divided loyalties, not knowing if anyone - including Devon herself -can be trusted, all the things I love, set against the unknown and dangerous world of the book eaters. It made for a gripping read, but not a light one. There's a very strong theme running through it of what oppression and desperation can do to a person, what it can twist them into, and how hard it can be to step away from that when it's all they've known.

CW for horrific levels of misogyny, some pretty gory violence, queermisia in various forms, and sexual assault and rape, though not graphically on page.

Okay, so this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022! However, it was very different from what I initially expected.

We follow Devon who's a member of one of the last remaining families of Book Eaters, they quite literally read books. The book is dual timelines where one is the present day, and we see Devon with her son who are living in hiding trying to stay away from her family. They are on the run following the events of her husband's death and the suspicious circumstances of this. Also, her son is special, he eats the minds of people. She tries to carefully select his victims for those who don't have ties to anyone, as once her son has eaten, there isn't a lot of that person left. The other timeline is her at home growing up as one of the few young girls in her community and what happens to her while growing up

This is such a heartrenching story of how far a mother is willing to go to protect her children and family. Devon is such an unbelievably strong character, but very morally grey in what she does to keep her son safe.

The Book Eaters was a pleasant and refreshing read from start to finish. There’s very little fantasy books set in the North of England, with the most popular sticking to the London roots instead, so it was nice to have an author take an interest for their book to be set in Newcastle for the majority of the story. The level of queerness throughout the book was also very refreshing, and being on the asexual spectrum myself, I really appreciated the asexual representation. The characters were also a pleasant read, nothing too perfect, and I really appreciated the themes of fairy tales featured throughout the novel. Will definitely be reading more by Sunyi Dean.

The Book Eaters at a glance:
✨ dark fairytale vibes
❤️ queer characters
🌙 commentary on gender expectations
🦕 a very unique concept
🌈 a fight for freedom

This. Was. Everything

I knew I’d enjoy The Book Eaters from the very first page. The writing was unapologetically dark and gothic, with a modern flare. The concept itself was so unique and I really enjoyed being in this world.

The Book Eaters are a group of six families in England, who survive on eating stories. The families are very much controlled, with each one having a Male head of the household.

As a Yorkshire girly myself, I loved that Devon was from Yorkshire too! Listening to the audiobook as well only enhanced my enjoyment.

The Book Eaters also had a lot to say on gender roles, and the expectations placed on gender in society (particularly women and the expectation of child bearing). We follow Devon throughout as she tries to break free from the patriarchal world of the Eaters and forge a new life for her and her son Cai. We flip between past and present as Devon realises she is in fact a princess, just like the ones from the stories she was fed as a child. But like in fairytales, the princess of often a trapped and tortured individual.

I would love to read more stories in this world, and especially from this author!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a new and intriguing concept that immediately caught my attention but as much as I wanted to love it, the back-and-forth of timelines in the story kept throwing me off and prevented me from fully immersing myself. The characters were, despite not being human, wonderfully human in their flaws and it was refreshing to read about the more morally grey heroine who would do anything for her child/children

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF’d at 31%

There was so much potential here but ultimately it all just fell flat for me.

I was very intrigued by the premise. People who live in remote manor houses and eat books instead of food to survive and absorb the stories and knowledge contained within.

It’s a dual timeline narrative and Devon, a book eater, is the main POV (in the third of the book I read). I was super interested in the past timeline when Devon was growing up and ingesting books she shouldn’t be. The world is fascinating in this part but then we jump eighty years into the future to the present day with Devon living in Newcastle upon Tyne and trying to find humans for her mind-eater son to feed upon. There are Dragons and Knights who I believe are types of book eater but it's not terribly clear who they are or why they’re after Devon and her son. I found the present day timeline dull. Not much happens and it really drags on. The prose is fine but there’s a lot of telling here. Also, as a Newcastle local, the minor inaccuracies really bothered me. I’m probably being a tad unfair here but it ended up being the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

I'm setting this book aside for now as a DNF, but it's one I'd like to revisit one day. i absolutely loved the world and the concept, but it's a little unrelentingly bleak for me at the moment.

I was fascinated by the idea of a society within society that feed of books but this is more than it appears. It’s a dark fantasy, part a retelling of the vampire myth and part a treatise on women’s reproductive rights.

The book eaters are made up of six families with an strange origin myth around somebody called the collector. Within each family female children are rare and this creates a fertility problem especially as the book eater women can only have two and occasionally three pregnancies in their lifetime. Another problem is that some of the babies born are mind eaters rather than book eaters and they are the true vampires, often killing and always incapacitating their victims and absorbing their minds into their own. The order of knights created from problem sons, with the role of supervising the marriages and controlling the mind eaters was an interesting creation.

I found it a little hard to suspend disbelief as the book eaters would have died out long before with figures that are given in this book. Also the level of technological skill available to the knights seems improbable.

Told in two converging timelines one contemporary and the other charting the course of Devon’s life, both from a close third-person perspective. In the contemporary timeline, Devon and her mind eater son Cai are on the run from the families and surviving in the human world.

One of the key themes is the sacrifices a mother will make for her children. It also tackles the trauma of forced marriage and at times feels very much like the Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood especially as the mothers are forced to abandon their children on their third birthday.

The character development was skilful. Devon and all the supporting cast felt real and although the family patriarchs felt a stereotypical that never mattered. The main antagonist Ramsey, Devon’s brother was complex and interesting.

The pacing was excellent and there was a steady build of tension throughout the narrative. The ending felt a bit anticlimactic but I like how some elements were left open for a possible sequel.

Review due for publication on Thursday Dec 15 2022

I've often wondered what books would taste like if you could actually eat them, and now I know! It only makes sense that romance is sweet and mysteries are spicy! If only I could taste them all.

Devon is a part of a family clan for whom books are food and she and her brother grew up on a diet of adventure and fantasy. Though the book starts out as a bit of a fairy tale, it soon descends into darkness as Devon grows up and loses her daughter. Later on her son is born with a rare disorder where instead of eating books, he eats human minds. Devon must fight to help her son and save her own world.

A fun, YA horror about a boy and his mother. I really enjoyed the writing and the fast pace of this book. The plot was fantastic, and the characters were really interesting and I had a good time with this one. It was a good time to pick this up during a cosy winter night.

Thanks for the arc for review to Netgalley!

This book is one of the best I've read this year! Highly imaginative, original and intense, the story is about love and sacrifice, the complexity of motherhood, but, mostly, a strong denouncing against patriarchy in all its forms. With a powerful and stubborn heroine, a magnificent worldbuilding, secrets, lies and mostly books, The book eater is unmissable|

There is a secretive race of people in contemporary England, a race which consumes books, absorbing the knowledge contained within. In the UK there are The Families spread across the country, and due to a combination of low birth rates with rareness of female offspring the Families are dying.
This is the story of Devon Fairweather, treated like a princess in her remote Family based in Yorkshire – pampered and precious but who soon discover the realities of the rigid arranged marriage system.
The story alternates between the present day and the past illuminating Devon’s life and providing insight into the Families. Book Eater women have at most two pregnancies and each one is via arranged marriage to a different Family in the hope to avoid inbreeding. The marriages are strictly contractual and once a child is conceived and brought to term the mother stays with the child for three years and is then moved on to her next marriage or retired to the ranks of Aunties.
Devon rebels against this, loving her first daughter Salem fiercely but having to surrender her. Her second child Cai is a problem – he is a mind eater who feeds on the essence of human brains to survive absorbing that persons knowledge and leaving an empty husk. Cai would be condemned to death or a life of servitude as a dragon and that is something that Devon cannot allow. Especially as the drug called Redemption which allows a mind eater to eat books is now out of circulation.
Devon escapes her marriage, fleeing with Cai helped by an ally and begins her search for the Family who created Redemption. The journey finds new friends, old alliances and betrayal to make a compelling story.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for access to this ARC as always much appreciated. All views are my own.

The concept of the book really intrigued me, however the story was completely the opposite of what I expected.
I never truly cared for the characters and the story didn’t even depend on them being book eaters, it could have been replaced by any other fantasy idea.

I really wanted to look this book. The premise sounded fantastic—a group of otherworldly beings, possibly aliens, live alongside us and survive by eating books and absorbing the heart of the book. It should have been fantastic. And yet…

It took me a while to pin down why I didn’t love this book. Firstly, it’s growing harder and harder for me to enjoy fantasy books where women are automatically treated as inferior. I no longer accept this as a staple of the genre. And secondly: the premise of the book is so wide-arching, it felt at odds with the plot being so focused on a small cast of characters. I kept wanting to see more than what I was given.

However, I really enjoyed the writer’s style and voice, and will definitely try the next book.