I've rounded this up because I think this was a fantastic YA horror but obviously I'm not the target audience.
Although the length of this book is too long (imo) it's themes and horrors within were certainly worthy of it.
As a person of colour in a porcelain world of Parisian ballet, Lore is always fighting for the main role, to be taken seriously, to be noticed as a contender. Being an American in the crème de la crème ballet school with only a handful of apprenticeships every year she takes the opportunity to make a deal with something ancient in the Paris catacombs that can give her just enough power to push herself to the top, sometimes at some stunningly sick costs.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bonnier Books UK in exchange for an honest review.

What would you give to accomplish your dream?

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me is the story of Laure, a black ballet dancer struggling to establish herself in Paris despite being the best dancer at her school. Tired of always having to do more, her life is changed forever when a fellow dancer brings her to a god and she decides to strike a bargain. Finally, she will get the recognition she deserves...but at what cost?

This book had so much going for it that I loved. Firstly, it's a horror story about ballet which I am obsessed with. Secondly, the protagonist really is one of the best YA protagonists I've read about in a while. Laure is painfully three-dimensional, so real she could dance off the page and demand why I am not doing more. Thirdly, the whole plot felt very unique to me. I don't read a lot of 'strike a deal' horror books but I think even if I had, this one is still incredibly unique.

Unfortunately, this book had two main flaws and they stopped me enjoying it as much as I did at the start. It is just too long in my opinion or at least, there is too much of the book where nothing is really going on. The beginning was so tight and so intriguing and then it slows to a bit of a halt, only briefly picking up speed again throughout. Related to this, I also found parts of the book to be a little confusing. I struggled a bit to keep track of where characters were or what was happening to them. Laure's parents are a good example of this. She kept on reinforcing this idea that her father had abandoned her and been a terrible parent, but then he kept cropping up and it wasn't entirely clear to me what he had done that was so awful. There are quite a few plot points like this and it didn't help when combined with the pacing.

Having said that, this book is still well worth the read. So many elements are strong and compared to other YA works, it stands out by a mile. I am very excited to see what this author does next as I believe they will only get stronger the more they write, and I hope to be seeing many more books from them in the future. This is a powerful voice and something horror desperately needs more of

Overall Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I had mixed feelings about this one.

I absolutely loved the setting, the cutthroat world of the ballet was a brilliant was to explore what lengths a person would go to for power and success. We see Laure struggle to be accepted and the applying racism prevalent in the ballet industry.

I loved the effect this has on Laure's friendships (can you ever truly call someone a friend when they're you're professional rival) and what happens when Laure is successful at the expense of her friend.

I enjoyed the supernatural element, Laure turning to a god and offering herself in exchange for her dream, but I struggled with the pacing and direction of some of these parts of the book. I found myself wanting to be past those and back into the world of ballet.

I thought the ending was perfect, the choice Laure has to make and how she confronts her friend and the tension between them was brilliant.

Overall, I did enjoy this and would recommend it to others.

Thank you NetGalley and Bonnier Books UK (Hot Key Books) for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When I saw that this was similar to Ace of Spades with a fantasy twist I had to read this, and I certainly was not disappointed. Set in a competitive and ruthless ballet academy, Laure fights for her place and will do anything it takes to be recognised. Underground, there is are dark and mysterious answers that will help her to get what she wants, but at what cost?

Even though this is YA which I often find too young for me, I found this highly enjoyable and thrilling.

This book took me a little while to get into as at the start its littered with ballet terms I didn't have knowledge of, however I was soon hooked.

It questions how far you would go to get to the top. The main character Laure is a black girl amongst a sea of white ballerinas vying for a contract at the Paris ballet school. She ends up making a deal and as you can imagine that sets off a chain of horrifying events.

I have seen it described as a cross between Black Swan and Ace of Spades, both of which I loved so I couldn't really go wrong with this book.

This was intense and I absolutely adored it.
Delving into the cut throat world of Parisian ballet, you get a deep sense of the blood sweat and tears it takes to make it and what it takes to hold your place.

Dark and filled with black female rage.

Fantastically written, there was an atmosphere throughout, I loved the descriptive style, the cover and the title!

A slow burn supernatural horror that pays off.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnier Books.
4/5 ⭐️

This book hit my performing arts soul with a piercing arrow. I just want to shout out the accuracy in this book of depicting the toxic side of performing, the cut-throat environment, how everyone is your friend and your enemy, the stress of auditions and performing at your best, the nature of one wrong move and your career is over. It was just so well done. Even the exploration into the complicated friendship between Laure and Coralie felt accurate to me - wanting to support your friend while also vying for the same positions as them and how that can be damaging to any kind of relationship.

All of this is intense and hard to navigate but then adding being the only black girl in a sea of pink and white tutus is a whole other level of white privilege, racism and also, in the specific case for Laure, classism. I supported every single moment of Laure's female rage and Black female rage in this book. I separate these two due to elements of Laure's rage having specific ties to her experience as the only black ballerina, like out-performing your peers and getting the main role but still not being the right "look" for the company, and other elements of her rage other ballerinas would be able to relate to regardless of race, cut-throat friends, rumours spreading etc. Every decision she made, no matter how dangerous, had me acting like that one meme of the older lady with the wine saying 'good for her'.

A super atmospheric novel that delved into the descent into madness that happens when you get given loads of power and how systems are built on oppressing talent that doesn't fit into their very white lense.

”I wasn’t sure if it was really me or the river then, screaming on the banks and encouraging me to give in and do my worst. And it was always so tempting to be worse.”

I read I Feed Her To The Beast and The Beast is Me last month which is the absolutely fantastic debut novel by Jamison Shea. I had high hopes going into this book I mean just look at that cover! And it did not let me down, it was absolutely fantastic, definitely more of a slow burn and not my usual genre as I'm more of an extreme horror girlie and dont read alot of YA but I have a soft spot for villain origin stories and morally grey characters and found this darkly captivating, gritty and was fascinated by how cutthroat the Parisian ballet can be.Having been described as Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow and Black Swan it 100% lives up to that analogy and perfect read for spooky season.

🩸🩸🩸🩸/5

This book has
⭕️YA Horror
⭕️themes of racism and classism
⭕️Eating disorder briefly mentioned
⭕️Talking river of blood
⭕️Toxic friendships
⭕️Toxic parent relationship
⭕️Soft monster boy
⭕️Villian origin
⭕️Morally grey mfc

Thank you to @bonnierbooks_uk @hotkeybooks and @netgalley for both my arc ebook and physical book

This is a title that is way out of my comfort zone but I heard lots of hype about this and curiousity got the better of me. This was an intriguing thrill ride and a great start to spooky season!

A twisted tale of ambition and power and ballet, this darkly captivating book was absolutely perfect to kick off the spooky season. I was gripped from page one by the increasingly disturbing (yet also very understandable — god forbid a girl have hobbies) lengths that protagonist Laure would go to for the recognition of her wealthy white peers in the ballet. Though the second act was a tad slow, it wasn’t enough to hinder this wicked story of embracing the monstrous.

I Feed Her to the Beast… follows Laure, a teenage girl who has dedicated her entire life to ballet and to proving that a black girl can overcome all of the prejudice and racism within the industry to become the greatest ballerina in Paris. The closer she gets, however, the more obvious it becomes that, however hard she tries and however impressive she is, they will always find an excuse to promote someone else instead. So when Laure discovers a river of blood deep in the catacombs that’s able to grant her every wish, she grabs the opportunity to gain the respect that she rightfully deserves. The wishes come at a price, though, and the more she takes, the harder it is to separate her true self from the monster that she has bargained with.

This book is incredible. I did have high hopes when I went into it from the cover (which is stunning!) and description, but it seriously surpassed my expectations. Laure’s story is so compelling that I couldn’t put this book down at all, and I found myself impressed and horrified and obsessed with the lengths that she was willing to go to, to get the acclaim that she deserved. She’s an incredibly complex protagonist who blurs the line between dedication and revenge and, along with a really captivating cast of secondary characters, made this story feel both believable and terrifying.

The imagery throughout is hugely impressive and it was really easy to get completely sucked into both the academy and the catacombs settings. The vivid descriptions do not slow the pace at all, and I found myself flying through it and, at the same time, not wanting it to end.

I Feed Her to the Beast is a solid contender for my favourite book of the year and is absolutely one of my favourite YA horrors of all time. I’m recommending this book to everyone I know and am really excited to read whatever the author writes next.

Jamison Shea's 'I Feed Her to the Beast, and the Beast Is Me' is a mesmerizing dance between the mundane and the supernatural, set against the backdrop of a Parisian ballet company. The intricate ballet references and the stark portrayal of a company's disregard for its dancers added depth to the story.

What truly captivated me was how the supernatural elements seamlessly intertwined with the narrative. The climax, while not a shocking twist, was a brave departure from the expected, making the story stand out.

While I initially read an advanced copy on Kindle, I just had to get the physical book, I even dabbled in the audiobook, which offered a unique experience, though it altered my mental character voices.

Laure Mesny's journey, fraught with ambition and dark bargains, is a gripping one. The story left me pondering its nuanced themes long after I finished. 'I Feed Her to the Beast, and the Beast Is Me' is a recommended read, especially for those who appreciate the blend of the supernatural with the arts. It reminded me of 'Tiny Pretty Things,' but with a darker, more enthralling twist.

The movie Black Swan 🩰 with more diverse characters and lots more blood 🩸

📕 I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me by Jamieson Shea
📕 Young adult horror, LGBTQ+, fantasy
📕 4/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟

SYNOPSIS:

"Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take centre stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood...

A slow-burn horror that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back." Goodreads

MY THOUGHTS:

🩰 Sold as Ace of Spades meets Black Swan it certainly lived up to that analogy. Eliquintely exploring the cutthroat world of elite ballet for a young Black MC called Laure (Laurence) who feels and is treated like an outsider despite her talent.

🩰 This is an immersively dark debut that is written so descriptively but in an accessible and absorbing style that despite not knowing much about the world of ballet, I got it, I understood it, and I was there!

🩰 This story packs it all in: horror, mystery, thriller, fantasy and social commentary.

🩰 Shea cleverly immerses me in the elite world of ballet whilst interweaving the brutal reality of racism, class, and Laure's need for acceptance/belonging.

🩰 Then Shea does a brilliantly terrifying job of exploring the sacrifices that Laure will make to have the status she deserves. And this is where it gets bloody and dark 🩸

🩰 This book will leave you wanting more, which is just as well, as it's a duology and book 2 is out in 2024.

🩰 I Feed Her to the Beast... is an example of why I love Young Adult storytelling, they are diverse, they are clever and they shine a light on social exclusion in the world.

Give me more Black authors and characters in the horror genre, please!

I love books where I genuinely believe that the author knows a lot about their subject because you get so much extra detail and texture that makes it feel fully fleshed out; I'm not a ballerina and never have been, but as a layperson, this read so well. Gripping and haunting, for fans of Black Swan and ritual blood pacts.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher Bonnier Books/Hot Key Books for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: self-harm, death, murder, blood, racism, classism, parental abuse, ritualistic behaviour

The first things I noticed about this book are its stunning cover and its long title, all of which immediately appealed. “I Feed Her To The Beast and The Beast Is Me” is a horror mixed with a thriller YA that follows a ballerina named Laure Mesny. She wants nothing more than to make it in the vicious world of the Parisian ballet, which is even more of a struggle because she’s Black, penniless and completely without any support. Driven to extreme lengths to become the greatest ballerina, Laure descends into the Paris catacombs alongside the current most famous dancer Josephine to make a deal with an ancient god by bathing in a river of blood. Laure is promised the power to cause adoration and devotion going forward but it’s still not enough, especially when faced with the terribly privileged, white world of ballet. Soon it turns out that the god has been seeking out people for years, meaning that Laure has unintentionally joined a group of four others with similar deals. Becoming addicted to the power she’s gained and willing to do anything in order to keep it including murder, Laure keeps renewing her deal, no longer caring who she has to crush in order to stay at the top. However, the deal she’s made soon proves to be more powerful and it becomes apparent that Laure has truly become the villain of her world, even as a murderer targets the best dancers in Paris.

The writing of this book is lush and engrossing from the first page, drawing the reader into the deeply morally corrupt world of Parisian ballet. There's a starkness to Laure's narration that I really enjoyed, we see everything through her eyes and that really changes how the story is told. Her relationships with the other dancers and then the others who have made deals with the god are interesting and incredibly dark as the story goes on. The horror of the god in the catacombs was my favourite part, there were aspects I could easily imagine on TV, as well as how Laure never forgets what people have done to her. I wish there hadn't been a romance in this book, since I think it takes away from the tension of the story around the halfway point, but overall I think this book is a brilliant debut, with strong and morally grey characters who will do anything to get what they feel they deserve.

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me is an amazing debut from Jamison Shea, and I loved everything about it from start to finish. This is a slow burn horror that is both compelling and unique in both topic and creativity. Laure is at a prestigious school of ballet in Paris fighting for her place to be the best of the best. The odds are stacked against her due to both race, upbringing, and the bias of those with power. Despite being the best in her class, Laure has to fight for every spot and is constantly judged by all around her. When she goes out for a drink with a successful ballerina who has the key to help her achieve the greatness she has, Laure grabs at it with both hands. But there's a darkness involved, and Laure may be in danger from not only her success but the darkness she's bargained with.
I loved how the author highlighted and tackled so many subjects within this book especially in relation to society, expectations, privilege, power, fame and perfection as well as the dark side of ballet and the marginalisation of communities. The ending was satisfying and very well wrapped up, and I can't wait to read more from this author!

Well this book did not disappoint at all it’s creepy and twisty and I couldn’t put it down!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

This was a bit of a mixed bag for me and I'm honestly sad that I didn't enjoy it more. I thought the premise was really interesting and I did enjoy the focus on the world of ballet, particularly the cutthroat nature of ambition. I just found the pacing a bit strange and wasn't sure what the overall intent was. There was a mystery element, but it wasn't given enough focus to make it compelling and the horror aspects fell a little bit flat. Overall, this was generally ok, but I wanted to love it.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you so much to Bonnier Books UK/Hot Key Books for providing me with an eArc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Overall I did really enjoy this book but I also felt like there was something missing.

I loved how ballet played into it and how this novel showed a darker side to the behind-the-scenes of it all. The descriptions were unnerving (In a good way) and the horror elements while sometimes felt tame, were so well written I got chills.

For me, the pacing of the book was a bit slow at first, especially the beginning, which I think is why it took me a while to properly get into it. But in the end, it was really good and creepy, a great YA Horror that I recommend you read!

As a character, I really did like how Laure was written. Her determination shines through each page until it becomes too much for her and she snaps under the pressure and does what she does to get ahead in a rich, white-centred world.

All characters in this story are morally grey, but with Laure, to see why she does the things she does, and to walk with her through the journey, I thought was truly fascinating.

This book brilliantly combated and spoke about institutional racism and the working-class system, and how Black and BIPOC people, even when they are the best in their field, have to push further just to be seen, heard and valued.

For it being a debut novel, I really enjoyed Shea's writing and look forward to what they publish next!

Wow. I never thought I could fall in love with the ballet aesthetic more and then this book happened. It caught the competitive essence perfectly and also highlighted tremendously well how in such a business you are always second guessing yourself, especially as a lower social-economic black women.

The writing style that the author adopted in her Debut novel guided the reader through the text whilst also creating high intense scenes, and during Laures ballet interview I felt as though it was me twirling and pirouetting on stage.

The book had the perfect balance of light and dark, euphoria and pain, horror and romance; it was a perfect blend of styles and genres.

I did find that at times the narration lost its firm sense of direction, but I think this was just because the author was passionate about creating intense sequences and wanted to move forward in a scene with out glossing, not because of careless or unthoughtful writing.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC copy of this book, and thank you Jamison Shea
for writing such an enthralling, ethereal Parisian novel.