The Book Eaters, Sunyi Dean

The book eaters, sunyi dean

First book of the year! Loved it.

1/3/23 addendum: Here's the official summary

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

OKAY so I really enjoyed this book. (Also it has a gorgeous cover! Mm. And the endpapers are a lovely, deep red.) It gripped me and I almost skipped out on a family event because I didn't want to put it down.

Big content notes on this one. I'll throw more specific notes under the jump.

The tone overall was fairly grim. On the sliding scale of pessimism to optimism, I generally prefer my fiction more optimistic, but I still find (well-executed) books on the other end compelling. It wasn't as grim as, say The Echo Wife.

There were a few points when I had to break out the sticky tabs once again, just because I couldn't continue until I'd paused to mark that line or this moment.

More thoughts to come in a future post (which will also contain spoilers)

Content notes under the jump

Content notes: violence, murder, death, depression, sexual assault, sexual consent issues, rape culture, domestic abuse, harm to children, drug and alcohol use.

2022 reading retrospective: mystery

I've never done a reading retrospective blog post thingy before, but i started one for 2022 and it immediately spiraled out of control. we're breaking it into parts.

For structure, I threw together these categories:

Nonfiction

Fear and Fungi

Mystery

Romance

summa cum laude

This post is about mysteries.

opinions, spoilers, etc below the jump

I like a cozy mystery, although I have been having issues with how un-diverse some of the settings are. But we're not here to talk about that! Highlights:

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P Manansala

Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto

Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies by Misha Popp

The Missing Guests of the Magic Grove Hotel by David Casarett

Double Trouble in Bugland by William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello

I'm gonna start with Bugland. It's FUCKING AWESOME. I love it. Everyone go read this book! It answers the question, "What if Sherlock Holmes was a praying mantis and John Watson was a grasshopper?" That doesn't sell you? God in heaven. There are PICTURES. Everything about this book is so good. Look at these loving, lavish illustrations. LOOK AT THEM:

And there's another book in the series! The first one is also good! (You don't need to read them in order. They're both short story collections.)

Okay, everything after this is a letdown because there are, like, no arthropods. But that's okay! That's fine.

Arsenic and Adobo and Dial A For Aunties are both a little weird because they're seem like they want to be romance-and-mysteries, but they go on the mystery list. They both feature protagonists of color, written by authors of color, and they are part of families and communities! of! Color! And they're good. They're good and they're personal. They're not perfect, but I had a fun time reading them and blitzed through both of them. I recommend them. No regrets!

The Missing Guests of Magic Grove Hotel is the sequel to Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness. The protagonist is a nurse ethicist, and it's set in Thailand. And the author is... *checks notes* a white guy, as far as I can tell. I think he's a doctor? I think maybe he either has relatives who are Thai or lived in Thailand? But I can't tell. This book is also imperfect (in its plotting and writing) but it's a fun read. I liked it. I recommend it.

Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies: content note on this one for references to domestic abuse. The protagonist is a baker, and she kills bad men using magic pies. Except that she is being blackmailed by someone who knows about the magic murder pies. Also there are two cuties, one who is a dude and one who is a lady. It's a fun read. I can't wait to read the next one.

In conclusion, go read Trouble in Bugland (and its sequel!) by William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello, and if you have time, pick up the rest of these because they're all good :)

I might be about to learn witchcraft????

I made the sprinkle crumbles and they are DELICIOUS.

Mostly just walnuts and pine nuts, plus seasoning.

But I can't tell if I like it as a cheese substitute or if I just like it because there is salt and I've been cutting back on sodium in general.

Num num num

I might be about to learn witchcraft????

Received THE BOOK EATERS by Sunyi Dean for xmas from S.

Am halfway through. Have resorted to making a "who dat" on a sticky note in the back of the book but that's more about my difficulty remembering names than the book itself, I think.

"I'm not getting any new books," I lied.

I have various tags and keywords for this series blocked/muted bc I want to avoid spoilers BUT maybe maybe soon