#BookEaters

[samsbadgereviews]

The Book Eaters

Last week I finished The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean as part of a buddy read with Destiny.

This book was visceral! 🔥

Devon is a book eater, an individual with the appearance of a human (for the most part), that absorbs sustenance and knowledge from consuming books/any form of paper with inscriptions. She was raised by one of the six families, to consume nothing but fairy tales so she might learn good manners and presume the role of a perfect princess, to be wed and give birth to two girls. Instead, after a slew of runaway attempts, and the birth of her son (Cai) that has to consume minds instead of paper, she sets forth on a scorched Earth plan to save him.

I loved everything about this book. The chapters alternate between Devon growing up and a few years prior to the current events, and modern day. The pacing is perfect, as it's revealed who true allies are, how her second ex-husband was disposed of, and what her brother Ramsey is willing to do to keep the Knights running. Each chapter starts with a literature reference, always fitting to the theme in some way. One of my favorites was something along the lines of "Maybe some day I can read fairy tales again". The videogame references are relatable and meaningful in providing Devon and Cai some form of escape.

The characters are so compelling, especially Devon's girlfriend Hes, brother-in-law Jarrow, and human journalist Mani. Nearing the final showdown in the book, Cai talks about how despite society seeing him as a monster, Devon would eat the world to protect him and he'd do the same for her. I love this monster family!! Though the most monstrous character is by far Hes' brother with his Catholicism inspired sacrificial cult.

The author has mentioned maybe returning to this world from the perspective of a side character after publishing two very different books, and I hope she does!

Note: This book has fantastic sapphic and asexual rep! With Dean being autistic herself, I think it's fair to say that Devon is as well.

This interview with Sunyi Dean and a representative of the Los Angeles Public Library provided solid insight into Dean's inspiration: https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/interview-author-sunyi-dean

[inoshwrites]

"We can only live by the light we're given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?" —Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters

[book-eaters]

HP 3 - Chapters 1 & 2

As we know Harry Potter’s story presents interesting and memorable characters that keep living in every single reader. First of all, we have Harry Potter who has very beautiful green eyes covered by his characteristic round glasses. He also has short black hair and a scar with a thunder shape on his forehead. He is quite tall and slim, and has pale skin. On the other hand, the book also mentions his two best friends: Hermione Granger who is an intellectual girl with large front teeth and brown hair; and Ron Weasley who is a part of the Weasley Family, and their similar red hair. 

In the first chapter, we can see Harry potter trying to deal with his life in his uncle’s house. He is finishing an essay from school trying not to wake up his uncle and aunt. It is actually Harry potter's birthday but, as in every single birthday, he does not celebrate it since it reminds him of when he lost his parents against Voldemort. As he is doing his homework, he notices a group of owls with letters for him. One is from his best friend Ron; the other is from Hermione and the last one is from Hogwarts requesting him to ask his “Parents” for permission in order to let him attend the wizard village of Hogsmeade. He definitely knows that his uncle would never sign the form, but he decides to sleep and consider this letter as a special gift for his birthday.

The second chapter explores the dynamics of the Dursley family during breakfast time while on the news it is being announced that a prisoner has escaped. On the other hand, Uncle Vernon says his sister Marge is coming for Dursley’s birthday. Marge is well-known for mistreating Harry, for having lots of bulldogs. Vernon and Harry arranged to sign the Hogsmeade permission form if Harry behaves properly and to say about his “school” which is one for troublemakers (instead of saying he attends Hogwarts for young witches and wizards). When Aunt Marge has arrived, she starts drinking and shows herself really mean towards Harry, insulting him and his parents, which annoys Harry to a point that he uses unconscious magic on her, inflating her as a balloon. After an argument with the Dursleys, Harry gathers his belongings and leaves the house.

By: Armando Angulo & Manuel Pech

[pufflekittehreads]

Past And Future Reads: September 2022.

I can’t believe it’s October already! Which means it is my birthday month. whooo! With the beginning of a new month, it becomes time to look at my September reads, and ones I’m hoping to get read in October. Let’s get started shall we? Longshadow – Olivia Atwater. 4.5/5. Proper Regency ladies are not supposed to become magicians – but Miss Abigail Wilder is far from proper. The marriageable…

[mashedpaintatoes]

"Her upbringing had given her such a fixed perspective that, even when encountering something new, she could only process it along the lines already drawn for her." - Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters

[simmonsized]

waited and got the matching paperback!

(do not talk to me about the stepback covers you know how I feel)

[bibliophage-art]

i wanna try and simplify my lineart so i can focus on colors. i’m way less confident with colors.

[solarishashernoseinabook]

What are some of your favourite books? (And if the answer is just all RA, beyond RA hfjhd)

FAVOURITE BOOKS LET'S GO

Discworld!! Just the series as a whole. Absolutely masterful and changed the way I think in my teens

The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green. I read it basically on a loop as a kid. I had it along with four other classic books that were published in a similar style and uh

yeah you can probably tell which one i read the most as a kid

3. To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose, absolute PEAK dragon fantasy about an indigenous girl who finds a dragon egg and goes to a coloniser-run dragon school so she can learn how to raise it

4. Temeraire by Naomi Novik, ALSO a very good dragon series that basically says "what if the people fighting the Napoleonic wars had dragons". It's as epic as it sounds

5. Babel by RF Kuang. SUPER cool magic system based on translation, really neat alternate history

6. The Bookeaters by Sunyi Dean. Fairly dark, but a cool concept about people who absorb knowledge by eating books

7. The Martian by Andy Weir. Really neat sci-fi about an astronaut stranded on Mars, trying to survive until he can be rescued when the next mission comes through

8. Once There Was by Kyash Monsef, about a girl who becomes a vet to mythical creatures. Had a fascinating through-line about grief and healing

hope that was a good enough list :D

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

2, 3, 11 & 16 for ethe end of year book asks? ✨📖

Did you reread anything? What?

I think I only reread Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth for a lore refresher to get ready for Nona's release. I will do the same thing with all three before Alecto comes out, probably. OH and I reread Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe to get ready for that sequel as well. also reread a couple volumes of Paper Girls because I finally finished the whole series in one big start-to-finish sprint after putting it off for years. okay AND I reread the first four or five volumes of the Sandman. but other than THAT no I did not reread anything lmao.

What were your top five books of the year?

ugh ugh ugh I was trying not to make concrete lists this year BUT

fiction:

The School for Good Mothers (Jessamine Chan)

America is Not the Heart (Elaine Castillo)

The World We Make (N.K. Jemisin)

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty (Akwaeke Emezi)

Jade City (Fonda Lee)

nonfiction:

I'm Glad My Mom Died (Jennette McCurdy)

How to Read Now (Elaine Castillo)

Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles (Eric C. Wat)

Hurts So Good: The Science and Pleasure of Pain on Purpose (Leigh Cowart)

Priestdaddy (Patricia Lockwood)

What was your favorite book that has been out for a while, but you just now read?

I really enjoyed Anne Carson's poetry collection Short Talks, which was published four years before I was born.

What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

"over-hyped" feels like it's asking me to make a really negative judgment about a book and suggest that I the hype is perhaps undeserved, which isn't really the case here. I personally didn't really connect with Sunyi Dean's The Bookeaters and gave up about halfway through, but it's appeared on almost every round-up of the year's best speculative fiction that I've seen. just because the book isn't for me doesn't mean I don't think it should be for anyone, and I'm glad Dean has found such a receptive audience with her debut novel!

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 5/5

Book Blurb: Sunyi Dean's The Book Eaters is a contemporary fantasy debut. It's a story of motherhood, sacrifice, and hope; of queer identity and learning to accept who you are; of gilded lies and the danger of believing the narratives others create for you. 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:

You Let the Right One In except its from the perspective of the caretaker.... this is a story about motherhood, sacrifice, and how far we are willing to go for those we love. The story takes place in a world here there live secret families that consume books, literally. Their food source is books, after eating books they retain all of the book’s content. The protagonist is Devon and we get to follow Devon from the past to her current predicament. Devon was raised in The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Ever since she was a child she was raised on books for women- particularly books carefully curated of fairytales and cautionary stories... to keep her submissive and believing in a specific lifestyle... she was raised as a princess but she will soon become disillusioned with what her life truly entails and what is truly happening to her as she soon discovers that she has been raised like every other female bookeater- to be married off to bear children and then give up those children to the family and then be married off again and again and again, constantly being forced to give up her children and married off to men she doesn’t like. But Devon is vicious, she’ll do anything to keep her children and destroy the foundations she was raised on. During her second marriage she gives birth to a mindeater... essentially the monsters of their kind as they feed off of human brains consuming it and the person... they have to kill people to eat them and Devon will not let her son be taken from her, she’ll be the monster she needs to be in order to raise her child even if he is a monster because he is her monster and he had no choice in who he is. Devon will go to great lengths to find a way to cure her son and free them from the world that is closing in on them. She’ll kill, lie, and betray anyone to protect them. Love is a choice, and she loves her family. This book was brutal and vicious, it was heartbreaking and beautiful, it explores motherhood and love in such a raw way. Devon’s entire world is broken down, everything she was raised to believe and formed who she was is destroyed, but in it’s place she has her love for her children, a love she is willing to go to any lengths. She is faced with impossible situations and circumstances but through it all her unquestionable love for her son is clear. This was such a fantastic read!

[chubs291]

Prompt #11 Surrogate An Undeserved gift

Ulfnar sat in his captain’s chair, listlessly combing through some stolen trade routes and schedules to try and set up their next Garlean haul. He had set off this work for long enough and the deadline for them picking a new bounty was closing fast, the gil was running out. Ulfnar shook his head and reached for the bottle of rum, finding it completely empty, not a drop left in it, only further adding to the captain’s doldrums. 

His head snapped up as he heard two loud bangs at his door. Stehlen, the boy was about 13 by now. . . what could he want with Ulfnar? Then it hit him, today was father’s day. 

“Ay Cap’n! You know what day it is today, yeah?” The roegadyn joyfully walked into the room, a small basket(well for a roegadyn) lay in his arms. “It’s uh Father’s day! And I thought I might as well get you something, I had a bit of spending money left over anyways!” The young lad sat the basket down in front of him. 

A light scowl appeared on Ulfnar’s face, “Like I said last time boy, I ain’t your dah and I don’t need no gifts from ya!” The captain told the young boy, “Your dad is off over in Sharlayan, maybe mail it to him or something huh?” 

Stehlen however refused to back down, taking a step forward. “Nah, he isn’t my dad, a dad raises you, teaches you what’s right and wrong, what to do and not to do, how to win a good brawl, stuff like that! That dusty old bookeater in Sharlayan taught me nothing! But you, you taught me a whole buncha stuff! So that makes you me dad! Or well uh my surgergate dad!” The young roegadyn explained, completing butchering the pronunciation to the point that it took Ulfnar a moment to actually realize what he said.

“Wait, do you mean surrogate?” A sigh escaped Ulfnar’s lips, “I guess you ain’t too far off huh?” The captain shook his head, “Fine then lad, what did you get me?” His hands slowly opened up the small basket, a small string tying the cover in place. “Well I’ll be. . .”

It was a fine pistol, designed with the utmost care and precision. It had a beautiful engraving on it and on top of that it had golden plates built into the handle and on parts of the barrel. Immediately something seemed very off, “Stehlen, where’d you get this fine piece of equipment? You said you bought it with your spending money, yeah?” Ulfnar said slowly in a tone that very clearly told his boy that he knew what he did. 

“Oh oh of course I did yeah! No clue what else you could be implying with something like that?” The boy said with a nervous laugh following, which was then accented by a mess of hollering and yelling outside on the deck of the ship. The boy quickly turned around, the color draining from his blue skin making him seem even paler than usual.

“Well I do gotta thank you for the gift boy, it’s a fine pistol, but now your uncle’s gotta go beat up the guy you grifted it from alright? So he doesn’t beat you to a bloody pulp, I’ll probably do something along those lines when I get back though.” And with that Ulfnar picked up his saber and stepped out of the captain’s quarters. And Stehlen couldn't tell if he was joking or not. 

[krowblud]

this bookeater anon is precisely the reason i have a headache. - batanon

Freaky

[heartstoppermybeloved]

📚📚Bookeater📚📚 | Heartstopper Vol. 1 por Alice Oseman Hoy te reseño uno de mis comics favs. Heartstopper Vol. 1. via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxUOrR0uVFw

[book-eaters]

The Dark Lord isn't here yet to wipe the world out from muggled born, in the meantime listen to Manuel Pech's podcast with a special guest, Armando Angulo, and his thrilling coming story "Ticket Bus"

Disclaimer: We don't own the background music. Credits to "Martia's Muses" (on youtube)

By: Armando Angulo & Manuel Pech

[starlightbooktales]

» what do you think you will read next? hello friends, i am in a huge fantasy mood so I am hoping to continue it with one of these books. I also plan on FINALLY reading the Hobbit here soon. I just want to read all the fantasy books, but I can never decide which ones to read! ♡ have you read any of these? which one should I read first? » hashtags:. #TBR #foundryside #lostintime #bookeaters #firstbinding #artofprophecy #vscoreads #bookaesthetic #bookcollection #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #igreads #booknerdigans #readersofinstagram #bibliophile #BookSpines #bookphotography #booklover #readersofig #bookcommunity #bookblogger #homelibrary #bookcollectors (at Boise, Idaho) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cix60USP4ea/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[glossyearrings]

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.

George R. R. Martin