The Book Eaters (Sunyi Dean)

The Book Eaters
Sunyi Dean
Tor
Fiction, Fantasy/Horror
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: In centuries past, the lore says, an entity known as the Collector created the book eaters, a secretive black-blooded subspecies of men and women who feed on written words, absorbing their knowledge. But sometimes, among them, rises a dangerous mutation, one born to feed not on ink and paper, but on human minds. For a long time these children were killed as babes, until one of the Families, the Ravenscars, developed a way to subdue their hunger... subdue, and harness, under watch of those trained as knights. It is a cold and cruel life, that of the barely-human beings known as dragons, even colder than life for an ordinary 'eater. And it is a life Devon Fairweather cannot allow to befall her son Cai.
In modern times, the 'eater Families have dwindled and faded, plagued by persistent fertility issues and their own insular, backward-looking nature. Only six viable brides remain in the British Isles, their marriages carefully arranged and escorted by knights to reduce inbreeding. Devon knew from childhood this would be her future: to bear two children (if fortunate), one each to a different Family husband, to be the treasured princess in the isolated castles and keeps of the Families, to be barely seen and never heard. She thought that she could bear that fate. But reality and motherhood soon set her at odds with her own people's traditions... and when her second child is both an unneeded son and a mind eater, she is driven to acts of rebellion that might topple the fragile house of cards on which the Families have built their power.


REVIEW: The concept intrigued me, with clear inspiration from vampire lore but with a nice spin, but if it seems like a story about vampires who feed on ink instead of blood would not be as violent, think again. The Book Eaters is chock full of cruelty, both casual and maliciously active, with a higher body count than some vampire stories I've encountered, in a story steeped in brooding gothic overtones and the horrible acts love can drive one to both endure and commit.
In chapters that alternate between the now of a Devon on the run with Cai, a five-year-old who acts far beyond his years at times (a side-effect of his need to feed on brains; as book eaters absorb knowledge from words, the boy integrates memories and personality traits from the people his mother finds to satiate his hunger, trying to restrict his diet to "good" people lest he become too uncontrollable), and her childhood and marriages, the isolated and inherently brutal nature of the Families and 'eater culture unfold, her own childhood happiness and rebellions smothered by those whom she thinks love her best and have her best interests at heart. Raised on a deliberate diet of weak fairy tales (save when she steals forbidden volumes), she, like all Family women, thinks of herself as a princess who can't help but have a happily-ever-after once she's married and has a child, even though she knows, from her own upbringing, that Family mothers are never allowed to raise and bond with their own offspring - one of many, many things she doesn't think to question until it's her own child that her husband is trying to tear from her arms. Here is where the story started to hit a snag for me, as once again a woman can only find agency and purpose by becoming a mother. For the sake of her children, she finally starts pushing back against the rules and traditions of the Families... and also, for the sake of her children, she can be lured right back into chains more than once. What was meant to be harrowing, no-win choices sometimes started feeling more like a tooth-grinding and irritating lack of ability to think for herself at all. All the horrible, evil, rotten things the Families do also becomes numbing, creating a race of humanlike beings that, while intriguing, became so deeply repelling and unpleasant and with such an irredeemably cruel culture that I sometimes found myself rooting for their extinction.
The story starts fast, if dark, though it bogs down more than once as it unfolds, sometimes feeling repetitive in its rubbing in of the Families' terrible deeds and natures (and the horrific dilemmas of Devon as she struggles to raise her boy and save him from his own inherent hunger). It does come together by the end, though, and manages to earn a Good rating, though if it had lasted too much longer it would've lost a half-star. There is a limit to how much flat-out depravity I can endure in a given story, especially when I don't really like any of the people in it...

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