A review by idontlovejessica
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

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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