The Book Eaters

Edit: with time away from this book, my problems with it bother me more, and I don't think my rating reflects my experience with it.



After finishing this, I think I respect it more than I liked it. It's a book I could see recommending to people, but it didn't really do the things I was hoping or expecting, and didn't make the thing it actually was compelling enough for me to overcome that. Also there were just little things that bothered me. Like, the book eaters only eat books. I couldn't get past this. I know it's the premise. But otherwise they are entirely human! I think it's because the book was so clinical about facts otherwise. There's a scene where a woman sticks it to an angry husband for having a daughter that “the sperm dictates the sex of the baby” and I'm like okay so biologically you are human then BUT HOW ARE YOU GETTING NUTRIENTS. It just kept taking me out of it. And there's a video game sub plot and I don't know for sure but I think Sunyi Dean doesn't play video games, or doesn't often, it just felt inauthentic. A line like “I guess I'll never know how Final Fantasy ends” which I can never imagine a gamer thinking. BUT the prose was great, the concept was great, the book felt very fresh and I felt the themes were expertly done, especially for a debut. There was a lot of really poignant or thought provoking stuff about love, family, motherhood, knowledge, culture, feminism...I'm not sad I read the book, but it also never really made me want to keep reading it, either.

Since finishing, I have thought about it a fair amount, but a lot of my thoughts revolve around missed opportunities. I don't feel like the book gave us enough of (or, perhaps, just not what I wanted to see) of the “Book Eater” culture. In general, you could basically take the book eater element out of the story and have the story not really change, which I didn't really like.

6/10 (previously was 7/10)