I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me (I Feed Her to the Beast, 1)

A cutthroat tale of ballerinas and power. I found myself having a hard time getting fully invested in this book but it was overall pretty good.

So I really liked this all the way up until the middle. What I Liked: • The cover is beautiful!! I have an obsession with creepy girls • Bisexual main character!!!!! • The demon/god/monster • Killer (literally) ballerinas What I Didn't Liked: • It was verrrryyyy slow • The story just fell flat • I just didn’t understand . . . Some things weren’t clear I don’t know if I just skimmed over these parts, or if I blacked out while reading. Maybe they weren't even mentioned at all. So Laure attends a ballet school and she's clearly still underage. Is the ballet school also an academics school? Is there another school that she goes to? Does she just not go to school? We (we is me) just don't know. Laure holds a very hard grudge against her father. And is a runaway from home? First off, are there no child protective services to ring this girl in? Why is she just allowed to run away from her parents? Why does her dad not do anything? Who’s taking care of her? Does she live with her "friend"? We (we is me) just don’t know. Why did we just forget about Josephine? I thought she was going to be a more important part of the story and then she just . . . wasn’t there. Also, I felt that the god/demon/monster should have been more bloodthirsty. Like, Laure basically sells her soul but it’s all fine and dandy as long as she completes a task? Last I checked, gods/demons/monsters aren’t sympathetic. Where is the supernatural gang to gank this SOB? We (we is me) just don’t know.

It took me a while to get into this but once I did it was easy to stay in it. I wish I knew more about ballet to understand that aspect of the story a bit more. Overall, I enjoyed this read and if there's a book made about Niamh I'd read it.

Insanely entertaining. A perfect read for anyone in their Villain Era. I don’t think that this book will be for everyone, but I am obsessed with it. It contains elements of some of my favorite narratives. The refreshing, primal savagery of Iron Widow. The horror and societal commentary of Get Out. The near-metaphorical melodrama of Nothing Burns as Bright as You. Bold, original, yet narrow mythology, akin to Bad Witch Burning. Main character Laure is so refreshing because of how monstrous the narrative allowed to be, while also being a fully developed and lovely character. She makes bold decisions on when to cross a line, when to go feral. Her thought processes were very interesting. Learning about this ballet microcosm was intriguing. The racial and economic prejudice against Laure never feel over the top or preachy, they all see, like realistic, likely conversations. There is a lot to unpack in this book, it’s practically craving book group discussions and rereads. I do wish that there was a bit more of a mystery thriller element with more of Laure investigating clues and suspects, with strong red herrings to add to the suspense. I also would have liked detail into how Laure trained for control with the Acheron group. The audiobook narrator was really good, with the exception of a few affectations for other characters’ voices. Felt a little cheesy, but it didn’t detract that much. 9/10 Audiobook review copy provided by NetGalley, not sponsored.