The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean is an exploration of depravity, cruelty and love. It explores the meaning and development of evil and whether good can come from bad acts by asking if love is good or bad or just a fact of existence, like fire and water? If you kill for love, is that bad, does it make you a bad person?

The protagonist, Devon, raised in isolation, on fairy tales, is torn from her first child. Determined not to lose the second child she grapples with just how far a mother will go to save her children.

I read this book in two big gulps over a weekend. The story carried me along so I barely noticed the time and pages flying by. After I finished, I caught my breath and wondered at the questions and answers posed by the situations Devon faced and her choices along the way.

Vancouver Public Library offered The Book Eaters to me on a Skip the Line Loan (I put a hold on it right after I read the Big Idea for the story at Scalzi's Whatever). I'll be reading it again when my regular hold is finally available!