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Give me misty landscapes, crumbling mansions, and wickedness afoot in a book about books. Thank you, I’ll take ten of those. Today, I want to talk about just such a book. I thought I understood what this tale would be about and what it would do for me when I read the synopsis accompanying an irresistible title, but it was far more devious than I anticipated, in ways both delectably atmospheric and grossly patriarchal. This is a story about people who literally consume books, yes, but also about the lengths one mother would go to find agency.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
I expected this book to mostly take place on a sweeping estate situated on the Yorkshire moors, learning about these clans of unusual people who absorb information as well as sustenance from words on the page. Parts of the book did take place on said misty moors, but I did not anticipate an action-packed game of cat and mouse set on the streets of contemporary England, the insidious machinations of clan rivalries, an underground rebellion, a mother making gruesome sacrifices for her son, and a sapphic romance to boot.
Devon is born a book eater, and we meet her as an adult. She has one child–a son born with very different, very taboo dietary needs (which is saying a lot for people who eat books), making him an undesirable to her family and people. Devon will do anything to protect her kid, even if it means going against the only community she knows. Now, she’s on a mission without the protection of home and clan, exposed to a world she knows little about, but was home safe after all? Drifting between past and present, Devon reckons with a girlhood where, while limited, she was treated as special and exceptional, and a coming of age that exposed her family’s chilling expectations around womanhood.
The Book Eaters took me in so many different directions and presented me with a compelling protagonist testing the limits of her loyalties and grasping at agency. I expected a quietly brooding story, but this was quite the page turner. I also loved watching a relationship develop between complete opposites Devon and Hester, the mystery woman who enters her life.
The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.
This week, we’re highlighting a post that had our Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz feeling a type of way. Now, even five years after it was published, Vanessa is still salty about American Dirt. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
In Reading Color
A weekly newsletter focusing on literature by and about people of color!
Picture it: The United States, January 2020. A book with a pretty blue and white cover is making the rounds on the bookish internet. The blue ink forms a beautiful hummingbird motif against a creamy background, a bird associated with the sun god Huitzilopochtli in Aztec mythology. Black barbed wire, at once delicate and menacing, cuts the pattern into a grid resembling an arrangement of Talavera tiles. The package is eye-catching, ostensibly Mexican in feel, and evocative of borders and the migrant experience.
The book tells the story of a bookstore owner in Acapulco, Mexico, who is forced to flee her home when a drug cartel murders everyone in her family except for her young son at a quinceañera. She and the boy are forced to become migrants and embark on a treacherous journey north to the U.S. border, evading the cartel and befriending fellow migrants along the way. The book is being lauded not just as the “it” book of the season but as the immigration story. It gets the Oprah treatment and is praised by everyone from Salma Hayek to the great Sandra Cisneros, who called it “the great novel of Las Américas.”
It’s been over five years, and this book is still the bane of my existence.
Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.
The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.
This week, we’re highlighting a post that had our Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz feeling a type of way. Now, even five years after it was published, Vanessa is still salty about American Dirt. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
Picture it: The United States, January 2020. A book with a pretty blue and white cover is making the rounds on the bookish internet. The blue ink forms a beautiful hummingbird motif against a creamy background, a bird associated with the sun god Huitzilopochtli in Aztec mythology. Black barbed wire, at once delicate and menacing, cuts the pattern into a grid resembling an arrangement of Talavera tiles. The package is eye-catching, ostensibly Mexican in feel, and evocative of borders and the migrant experience.
The book tells the story of a bookstore owner in Acapulco, Mexico, who is forced to flee her home when a drug cartel murders everyone in her family except for her young son at a quinceañera. She and the boy are forced to become migrants and embark on a treacherous journey north to the U.S. border, evading the cartel and befriending fellow migrants along the way. The book is being lauded not just as the “it” book of the season but as the immigration story. It gets the Oprah treatment and is praised by everyone from Salma Hayek to the great Sandra Cisneros, who called it “the great novel of Las Américas.”
It’s been over five years, and this book is still the bane of my existence.
Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.
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