"For Chrissakes, I'm a grown-up. Swearing is my privilege!"

I don't generally read urban fantasy (too "real" in a way I can't really describe, and it tends to bore me), and I definitely don't read vampire/gothic horror stuff (too romance-riddled). But I guess when you throw those genres in a blender with a unique magic system and some found-family LGBT elements, it made the whole thing a whole lot more interesting.

Devon is a book eater, a small, secretive clan of people who, rather than reading books and eating food, eat their books. Like, literally, page by page, cover to cover, omnomnom down the hatch, eat books for sustenance and knowledge. They're a very small clan and predisposed to giving birth to more males than females, so the rare females of the clan live a pampered life of a princess--doomed to arranged marriages and being treated more like property than as people. Not content with this life, Devon escapes with her second child Cai, who himself is a mind eater. Mind eaters are genetically different book eaters, and instead of eating books, eat minds instead. Like, brain matter. Memories. Personalities. That sort of thing. The clans of book eaters generally deal with these aberrations harshly, either training them as weapons or killing them outright. Devon is determined to escape the life she was born to, but still needs to procure 'Redemption', the medicine manufactured by one of the book eater clans that keeps mind eater hunger at bay.

I'm a sucker for a unique magic system. The author fully fleshed out the lore of these book eaters, with the different genres having different tastes, incorporating the knowledge aspect into the story, and having numerous epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter adding to the book eater/mind eater lore. It was really well done. I liked Devon as a main character, and loved the found family/attraction aspect between her and Hester. The book eater clans also had different stories behind each one, though I wish there had been a bit more of that lore fleshed out as well. I thought the story was compelling and interesting, and I appreciated how the current day story was weaved into Devon's story from ten years ago. The side-by-side telling was well done.

I really only wish there had been some inclusion or closure on the Salem aspect. The author has said here that this was intended as a stand-alone and is not supposed to have a sequel which is a little disappointing, but entirely understandable.

I had a lot of fun with this book, and I'm glad I gave it a chance.