The Book Eaters (International Edition)
"I devoured this."—V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue
An International Bestseller
An NPR Best Sci Fi, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction Book of 2022
A Book Riot Best Book of 2022
A Vulture Best Fantasy Novel of 2022
A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee
A Library Journal Best Book of 2022
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.
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Community Reviews
The most interesting aspect of this book, the book eating, is such an insignificant part of the story. Instead the book is mostly covering the same themes as Handmaid's Tale, but with less dystopia and religious commentary. Characters and conversations are flat, predictable, and monotonous. I've listened to like 6 hours of this audiobook at 1.5 speed and it feels like it's been 12, it's really dragging and depressing. I don't want to make myself read another 7 hours of this bleak situation, and I don't really care what happens. I assume it's bad, like everything that's happened so far.
Content Warnings:
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Pregnancy, and Alcohol
Minor: Body horror and Acephobia/Arophobia
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