Biblioholics, voracious readers, that’s what some of us who read upwards of fifty or even one hundred books per year call ourselves. But the characters in Suny Dean’s debut novel, The Book Eaters take that idea to an extreme degree. As the title implies, the main character Devon Fairweather is a book eater, she is human in visage only and she is a member of one of the six families of book eaters who sustain themselves by literally eating books and consuming ink. This peculiar diet allows the book eaters to gain all the knowledge between the pages.
Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom spy novels are a peppery snack, and 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 Fairweather is part of an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grew up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all book eater women—was 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.
When we meet Devon she’s living at the end of her means, taking care of her son Cai. Female book eaters like Devon are rare and are seen largely for their ability to give birth, allowing the species of book eaters to continue. Even rarer is what her son is – a mind eater. That’s just as gruesome as it sounds, and Devon will do anything to ensure his safety, even provide sustenance for him in the form of fresh brains. As a result, Devon and Cai are on the run from her family, because mind eaters are generally not allowed to live freely and because Devon is a woman. When Devon meets a woman at a bar and brings that woman home, the path she thought she would need to travel to escape her family takes her down quite a different path.
Dean crafts a fascinating world hidden within our own in this powerful debut novel. The lineage of the book eaters as a secret society and how they are whispered about by some people gives it a mythic, folklore-ish quality that was quite magical and very appealing. It is a subtle trick that can be tough to pull off, but through a key character or two and some quotes preceding certain chapters, Dean pulls off this “secret society” with authenticity and believability.
There’s also a lot of potent themes in the novel, foremost of which may be motherhood. Devon’s first child was essentially stolen from her by her family and the wound, understandably, has never healed. When it is learned that her second child, who doesn’t even warrant being named, is to be taken from her, she will not suffer again.
The book eater’s views of women is quite horrific, women are viewed simply as breeders, they serve only to birth new book eaters. Women aren’t even permitted to name their children, which is just another mark against their lack of agency and personhood. Despite Devon having been raised on lies and a life of servitude, despite her son being born as a perceived monster, Dean manages to eke out hope in this story. Devon’s devotion to Cai is the driving force of the novel.
Dean allows the story to unfold in a parallel narrative: in the “present,” Devon’s plight trying to save her son and the past which begins with Devon’s early life and snapshots over the years until her eventual flight from her family. It is a great storytelling device that is used to build up a palpable sense of tension in both storylines. Although Dean quickly builds up empathy for Devon in the early portions of the novel, these “past” chapters imbue even more empathy and sympathy for Devon.
The Book Eaters is an extremely impressive debut novel and should not be missed.
Recommended
© 2022 Rob H. Bedford
Trade Paperback | 310 pages (with glossary)
Tor Books | August 2022
Author Website: https://sunyidean.com/ Twitter: @Blind_Nycteris
Excerpt: https://www.tor.com/2022/07/12/excerpts-the-book-eaters-by-sunyi-dean-chapter-one/
Review copy courtesy of the publisher
