ARC AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
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Publisher: Macmillan Audio
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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; 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 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.
Review:
I receive this book from the publisher through netgalley.com I am voluntarily leaving this review.
The idea of this book made me jump at it and the cover is fantastic.
This story has so many levels to it I am finding it hard to even
review. The world that Dean has created with a species that feeds on
books and can retain the information they ingest and the darker mutation
of them more like vampires they feed on brains and can then retain
memories and mannerisms of the people they consume is complex and
brilliant. A new take on mutants or vampires this fantasy has so much to
offer.
Devon has been raised to believe she is a princess - cared for and only
given fairy tales to consume. Fairy tales of princesses falling in
love and getting married. But Book Eaters are dying out. Their
women are not always fertile and so the ones that are, are bartered and
handed over for "marriage" for a period of 3 years where the object is to
conceive a child preferably a girl - after 3 years the child is left with
the family and the mother is taken away to remarry and do it all over
again. Not at all like the fairy tales Devon has been consuming.
Not to mention that Devon prefers the company of women.
After her first marriage and losing her daughter Devon is determined to
change the system. But Book Eaters can't create, their imaginations are
only as deep as what they consume. During her 2nd marriage she meets a man
who shares her desire for a different life and together they hatch a plan
but its dangerous and there are many sacrifices to be made along the
way.
This really is a book about creating your own destiny and not being swayed
by what is expected. It is a reminder that you can achieve anything
but sometimes sacrifice is necessary for the greater good. I think this
book will stick with me for a long time. There is so much to digest!
I can see this being an excellent book club book since there is just so
much to talk about.
The narration was excellent, the story well written and original.
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