Some people reported this as “engrossing” and “captivating” or “compelling”… I would never say that. Perhaps these other people have never read another book? I would also not call it mind-blowing… unless you mean mind-blowingly slow, mind-blowingly full of superfluous adjectives, or mind-blowingly awkward. Yeah, I’m not a fan of this book and I would not have finished it except that I want to be able to participate in my first group book read…
A short blurb containing *SPOILERS*: Alok meets a stranger who refuses to tell him his name, because “mysterious”. The stranger employs Alok to transcribe 2 translated texts: one is the account of a shape-shifter who kills a child to use his flesh as a parchment to record the tale of raping a woman… yeah, lovely… if only he had killed a dog he would have rounded out my terrible 3. (I’m sure he killed dogs.) The second text is the story of the woman (Cyrah) who was raped by the shape-shifter and her journey up until she has the child. Oh yeah, and the stranger also claims to be a shape-shifter. As Alok is translating these texts he gradually accepts that the stories are true and that the stranger is indeed a shape-shifter. The stranger tells him that his name is Izrael (why was this so hard to tell him before?!)… Alok and the stranger have weird sex and lets just say that Izrael and Alok are devourers now (ba dum cha), and Izrael leaves without so much as a thank you. Oh yeah, and Alok has a cat that shows up at his door who is probably Izrael, or Alok is Izrael, or Alok if Cyrah… yeah, just read the last chapter and you’ll know why this book is confusing.
I will say, I think the only think I liked about this book was that Cyrah had spunk.
Thanks for taking one for the team reading this! But yeah you’ve confirmed I’m glad I didn’t even start it.