Book Review: The Book Eaters

I received this book for free from Booksweet, Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Published by Tom Doherty Associates on August 2, 2022
Genres: Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary, Fiction / Horror
Pages: 304
Format: ARC, Paperback
Source: Booksweet, Netgalley

“Sunyi Dean’s debut is nothing but outstanding. A wonderful combination of the familiar and the unknown that just keeps you guessing over and over again. Consider having this wonderful novel for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”—The Nerd Daily

A National Bestseller
Indie Next Pick

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; 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 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 fairy tales 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.

Devon is part of a secret society of people who literally eat books to survive, but her son has a more complicated need: a hunger for human minds. This becomes a problem, as you might expect. What follows is a story of sacrifice, love, motherhood, and train schedules. Also it’s sapphic. Five stars. (Also the ARC I have is really well-formatted, and it’s a solidly very pretty book.)

Booksweet link. Storygraph link. Goodreads link.