Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

97 reviews

matcha_pages's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

First half of the book flew by, I was totally engrossed in the world of book eaters. Between the action scenes and the psychological chills this book had my full attention.  Sadly, the ending was rushed and a bit choppy. We're also left with unanswered questions, may be the author was planning to write a sequel?

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klr0's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0


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idontlovejessica's review against another edition

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medium-paced
 YMMV on the scope and depth of this novel. Admittedly after a diet of hard sci-fi and political thrillers, I was a little disappointed by this. There are so many fun threads and lore details I wish we could nail down and explore! My friend informed me that the author drew on the experiences of people who escaped cults and that greatly helped me contextualize this novel in a, honestly, smaller scope. Others have compared it to Handmaid's Tale and I found myself also comparing it to that, but if it is a cult allegory rather than a Conservative Republican American allegory I think it works really well! If there are future additions I'd love to explore how firm the Bookeaters abilities/disabilities are. Can they not read because of society, trauma, or is it because of biology? How effective is the ability to eat books? I'm currently obsessed with multi-personalities and fusion personalities (Shout-out The Locked Tomb and Steven Universe) so I'm very excited to explore how Kai evolves. Overall a read I found underwhelming, but so full of neat ideas I spent many more hours trying to dissect and fix what I thought was lacking.

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squisheebee_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book was much paced much slower than my usual reads. Even though I didn’t read it straight through because of the pacing, I loved every minute I was reading.

Incredible, flawed, queer anti protagonist & her “monster” child who I could not help but adore. 

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asolis's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75


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captainsillypants's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.75


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gen_wolfhailstorm's review

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? N/A
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

 The Details:
 Narrated by Katie Erich
Unabridged

This was just okay for me. It had a really cool snd unique concept but I just lacked any emotional connection for the story and ended up more or less having it on as background noise, unfortunately. 
I wish I had had a stronger feeling for this title.



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snowwhitehatesapples's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 Also on Snow White Hates Apples.

As one of my most highly anticipated reads, I was a little disappointed by how average this book turned out.

The Book Eaters has an intriguing premise that I’m sure would attract every bibliophile out there — after all, what’s not to love about a book where books play a prominent role? To make it all the more interesting, this book features a species of human-like beings that subsist on either books or brains only. They’re hidden from the watchful, fearful eyes of many humans and they have long lifespans. However, their females can only give birth to two children all their life which means that if not enough females are born, there will come a time when they’ll become extinct. As such, knights and dragons play a crucial role in arranging marriages between the Families, which contributes to maintaining and enforcing the status quo.

This results in an insular and strongly patriarchal community where a female’s only worth is the offspring she has…and she’s not even allowed to care for the child past them turning 3 years old. All this gives a lot of room for social commentary on patriarchy, misogyny, misandry, toxic femininity, toxic masculinity and other gender issues. It also allows for explorations on trust and identity.

Sadly, both the execution and characters were lacking. Although there were some complexities and depth to the social commentary, the way the story was written wasn’t strong enough to uphold those notions. It also didn’t help that despite the clear system and context on book eaters and mind eaters, their presence was more secondary. So in overall, these two aspects made for an underwhelming story.

Moreover, I found it difficult to care for the characters. Sure, I could sympathise with them and their situations, but there remains a distance that somehow made them feel flat even though they were all distinct, compelling and memorable.

Everything considered, The Book Eaters has a lot of promise and potential, which makes it a shame that I didn’t find it as mind-blowing as I had hoped for. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a read where the focus is more on an underdog’s journey to gain freedom and independence away from all that confined them and their loved ones, this is a book to try

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orangezara's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I enjoyed reading this and I found myself really caring about the characters. The ending was satisfying and the worldbuilding and lore around the book eaters’ traditions was fascinating. There were some events that were hard to stomach but I think they added depth to the story and contributed to the character’s development. The story has  similar themes to The Handmaid’s Tale.

There was a lot of repetition though and stretches where nothing happened or the events were dragging out. There’s lots of ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’ and some parts would be more emotionally impactful if they were left unsaid. I also find jumping between present day and memories to be frustrating - it would’ve been more enjoyable if the timeline was linear.

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beeping_librarian's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Not bad. Mysterious and unsettling. Motherhood/chosen family, and how love can twist you to do terrible things. There were attempts to add levity and deep personal connections, neither of which really worked. 

Flipping back and forth in time kept me guessing enough to stay engaged, but a lot of the dialogue and characters themselves were just not very interesting. The romance subplot was not believable. The ending was depressing. 

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