“I do know 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?”

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean is a profound mix of urban fantasy, horror and fairytales which combined together serve up a highly compelling and emotive debut.

Scattered throughout remote parts of Britain are six Families of Book Eaters, a non-human race who dine on stories and legends instead of food. Over the years their numbers are sharply declining, due to their lack of fertility children are rare, especially female children. So when a blessed female is born she is revered as a princess, fed on a diet of fairy tales, a precious creature to protect, to hide away and pamper until she becomes of child bearing age. Then the Knights and Dragons come and whisk her away to be married into another Family. This is Devon Fairweather’s fate and little does she know how horrific her fate would be nor how deeply motherhood would change her. For when her second child is born a Mind Eater, a feared anomaly who instead of books feeds on minds and souls, she knows she must flee lest her son be turned into a tool for the Families to weaponise or… kill.

Throughout the book we alternate between Devin’s present day narrative, to her past. The opening chapter sees Devon and her son, Cai, already in hiding. To sate Cai’s demanding hunger Devon must hunt humans to feed her son. Dean immediately dives into Devon’s conflict of having to choose kind, good people for Cai to devour, as each time a Mind Eater feeds they absorb their victim’s memories, personalities and even speech patterns. One day Cai will eat enough minds to lose himself completely, unless Devon can find the rare cure, Redemption. Yet until then Devon wrestles with some hard choices, which was an aspect that immediately gripped me. She knows she’s killing innocent people and this weighs heavily upon her, but she cannot starve her own child. It would have been easier had the victims been evil themselves, but then what would her son become?

When we switch to Devon’s past, here is where Dean shines a light on the world of the Book Eaters as we discover their history and intricate Family structure. We witness Devon through her childhood, one filled with the consumption of fairy tales, of mischievous adventures with her brother Ramsey, exploring her Family’s manor in Yorkshire and being doted on by her uncle Aike. Despite this seemingly ordinary and blissful scene, Dean creates an unsettling feeling, a sinister atmosphere which lingered, festered and grew. As Devon grows older we realise that just like the princesses in her fairytales, her own narrative was largely controlled by men, the patriarchy ruled and Devon had very little agency of her own. I loved the parallels in which Dean presented here, the innocence of childhood where you truly believe you’re a princess and the world is a beautiful whimsical place, to then later realise exactly what it means to be a “princess”.

“However loving her childhood, her flesh was still theirs, her goods for the selling. Like pigs or chickens raised for the slaughter, she had developed affection for her keepers, and they for her. But that did not stop her from being consumed; pig farmers still chewed their bacon with enjoyment. Affection only made cruelty rueful.”

The Book Eaters felt strongly reminiscent of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and also felt reflective of the current situation of the loss of body autonomy rights in the US. Female Book Eaters are all destined to become mother-brides, with Knights arranging their matrimony to one of the suitable six Families to avoid inbreeding. They are forced to bear a child, raise it to three years of age and then part ways as they are moved on to another family to repeat the process. There is no choice, no means of escape. Females become prisoners, nothing but commodities, vessels, a means to procreate without even being able to experience motherhood. I highly praise Dean for her portrayal of this vital subject-matter, through our beloved Devon refusing to simply let her children go, I believe Dean gives a metaphorical “fuck you” to a patriarchal society which deludedly believes they can control women.

As much as this is a story of motherhood and the lengths one will go to in order to protect their children, it is also a story of monsters. Dean creates the Book Eaters and Mind Eaters to inhabit Vampire-like traits, for instance in place of fangs they have Book Teeth, they are extraordinarily strong and bleed ink-blood. Mind Eaters have long curling tongues and predatory instincts, which quite frankly made me shudder! Every character within this book are monsters in their own way; Devon is certainly no hero, she is simply a mother who makes ruthless decisions, always putting her children’s needs before her own personal cost.

“It was love and it was death and Devon thought that, for her, those things had become inextricably yoked. Her children were fires who needed fueling; she would burn anything and everything to keep them going.”

Dean superbly injects an abundance of emotion into Devon’s character. There were parts of this novel which caused me to rage right along with Devon herself. Dean’s prose is exactly the kind I find easy to immerse into, it’s atmospheric, often poignant yet naturally flowing. I really liked the use of modern slang, something which usually jarrs me out of a fantasy story, but Dean makes it fit her world and never overuses it. I particularly found the epigraphs impressive; they contained quotes from various other works of literature such as Return of the King and The Princess Bride, or pages from various characters’ journals. These added fantastic relevant context and layers to each chapter, always building a scene of what was to come. 

This is certainly a story which provided much food for thought. The Book Eaters is a darkly gothic nuanced story of motherhood, survival and the dangers of a patriarchal society. Dean’s debut is raw, gritty, emotive and bursts with bitter-sweet flavours.

ARC provided by Amber at Harper Voyager UK. Thank you for the ARC! All quotes used are taken from an early review copy and are subject to change upon publication.

The Book Eaters is out 18th August in the UK but you can pre-order your copy HERE