...here was the thing that no fairy tale would ever admit, but that she understood in that moment: love was not inherently good. [loc. 2856]
Devon Fairweather is a princess: cossetted but commodified, her sole worth in the children she can bear. Her species (not human but 'clothed in the skin of humankind') mostly eat books, retaining the content and relishing the varying tastes of old novels, fairy tales and lurid thrillers: at one point Devon, devouring maps to broaden her understanding of the world, seasons the glossy paper with ketchup.
Devon needs maps because she's determined to escape her fate. She's had not one but two arranged marriages, and borne a child to each husband. The first of these was civil enough, but made empty promises to Devon, implying that she could keep her daughter. The second husband was an abuser, and their son Cai was born the other kind of book eater: a mind eater, a creature that literally sucks out human brains. There's a drug, Redemption, that can help Cai, but the family who made it have vanished. Devon's on a quest to find them: but meanwhile Cai must feed, and thus Devon -- luring a likely morsel back to their lodging -- encounters Hester, who may be able to put her in touch with a source of Redemption. And whom Devon, acknowledging a truth she's never been able to admit to herself, wants to kiss.
The world-building of The Book Eaters, is expansive, though occasionally seems self-contradictory: I'm not convinced by some of the details of how the book eaters live alongside, but unnoticed by, humans. The interpersonal relationships, especially Devon's fraught relationship with her brother Ramsey (who she believes she's doomed to the terrible life of a Knight, an enforcer), are horribly compelling, and I do mean horribly. Devon is not always a likeable character, though to be fair she's a product of her upbringing and the carefully-selected diet of books with hapless heroines that she's consumed from an early age. (Has nobody ever given her anything more revolutionary?) Her love for her children is her only real motivation: it gives her the strength to commit atrocities, to break free of the Families, and to let Cai make his own choices.
This is a dark novel, and not often a happy one: nevertheless, perhaps because of the Gothic mood and melodramatic behaviour, it felt to me like a YA novel. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but I'm glad I didn't read this as a teenager.
Fulfils the ‘A book about siblings’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.
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