I was a little worried that this one would end up being a dud, but I am pleased to report that The Book Eaters is a good novel. I think bibliophiles like me will really like this one. It is a bit on the nose with respect to its themes, but it’s characters and world-building are interesting enough to make you overlook the obviousness of the novel.

The Book Eaters is about a woman named Devon who is on the run with her five-year-old son Cai. Devon is a Book Eater, not exactly a human, but a being that looks human but whose origins are shrouded in a murky alien mystery (kind of like Scientology, ha). Book Eaters do not eat human food (although, they do drink copious amounts of booze), instead they consume books. And once they consume a book, they retain all its contents (I wish I could retain the contents of every book I “consume”). However, Book Eaters cannot write and are not very imaginative. They live apart from humans (or at least they are supposed to live apart from humans), divided into different Families, but they adhere to strict human sex and gender norms where Book Eater men have all the power and Book Eater women are used to produce Book Eater children, à la The Handmaid’s Tale.

Devon’s son Cai is not a Book Eater, though. He is a Mind Eater with an unsatiable appetite for human minds and he takes on the personality and memories of the people he consumes. His victims do not always die and the ones who are unfortunate enough to survive are basically left as hollow shells of the people they once where. Mind Eaters are considered dangerous and unable to control their appetites. They are either destroyed or trained to become henchmen for the Book Eaters. However, one of the Book Eater Families, the Ravenscar Family, created a drug called Redemption that helps to suppress the Mind Eaters’ appetites for minds and allows them to consume books.

Devon is on the run because there was a coup in the Ravenscar Family and the surviving members of the Family have gone into hiding, taking the formula for Redemption with them. Supplies for Redemption are running low and Cai faces being destroyed by the Book Eaters unless Devon can find the surviving Ravenscars and get some Redemption from them. As she searches for the Ravenscars, Devon must find people for her son to eat if she wants him to survive.

Devon is an interesting character and the strongest part of the novel. As a Book Eater girl, she was literally fed fairy tales and grew up thinking of herself as a princess, but she was independent for a Book Eater girl and often did things she was not supposed to do. As an adult, she is faced with the reality of what it means to be a Book Eater woman when she is sold off to two different Families to provide each of them with a Book Eater child. She is forced to endure sex with Book Eater men that are either indifferent or cruel towards her, and she begins to realize her own sexuality may not be “normal” as she is attracted to women. She is also forced to give up her daughter from her first marriage, which is why she clings so tightly to her son, even though she struggles with the “monster” that he is.

While on the run with Cai, Devon sheds the idea that she is a princess and learns to fend for herself outside the narrow scope of the Book Eater world. She is a strong, complex, and conflicted character. She struggles with being a mother to Cai as she feels monstrous for luring innocent victims to Cai for him to eat, and she has her moments where it gets so hard to deal with it, that she wants to abandon him. The relationship between Devon and Cai will have you questioning how far you would go for the ones you love.