44 pages • 1 hour read
Sunyi DeanThe Book Eaters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Devon’s Locket
Devon’s compass locket containing a photo of Salem is the only memento she has of her daughter and the only piece of her first marriage that she carries with her into her new life. It is arguably the only true kindness that Luton shows Devon during their marriage; however, it could also be interpreted as a device intended to manipulate her into subservience.
The compass represents direction and drive, symbolizing Devon’s undying motivation to find her way back to her daughter. However, it’s also notable that Devon receives the locket shortly before she runs away and abandons the person she swore to protect. Devon incorporates it into her yearly vigil on Salem’s birthday, a process that is both painful and cathartic. In this way, holding onto the locket becomes a way of punishing herself for letting Salem go.
Devon uses the locket to prevent herself from forgetting what she left behind and moving on. Finally, the photo in her locket is a snapshot of a moment in time; the Salem that Devon carries with her never ages or experiences pain. By carrying her daughter in an immutable image, Devon doesn’t have to face the intervening years that separate them—Salem will always be the little girl she knew.
Fairy Tales
Devon and the other book-eater women are raised primarily on a diet of traditional fairy tales. These are not the darker, more traditional versions of these tales but rather the contemporary, sanitized versions that are easily recognizable from their Disney adaptations. These stories are intended to teach girls and young women a distorted view of their own value. Initially, Devon is proud of her place in a real-life fairy tale; her source of sustenance positions people like her as near-divine elite, coveted as treasures to be won. Being shaped by these stories and nothing else, Devon is unable to fathom an existence with a different set of values. It’s not until her love for her child becomes stronger than her love for her family that she’s able to see past these fairy tale tropes.
The families use fairy-tale vernacular throughout their culture, particularly in referring to their mercenary organization as “knights” and their weaponized mind eaters as “dragons.” The place where they gather is called “Camelot Inc.,” an allusion to the Camelot court in King Arthurian legend.
Dean incorporates numerous fairy-tale quotations in her epigraphs, and Devon compares many of her experiences to those she’s absorbed through fairy tales. Killock rebrands his family home as a religious sanctuary with biblical imagery in this context, embodying its own kind of fairy tale. By the end of her journey, Devon comes to understand that while her life may have fairy-tale elements, the reality is messier and more complex.
Borders and Boundaries
Devon’s journey is largely dictated and influenced by the presence of boundaries, both physical and intangible. The clearest example of this is the UK land border, which acts as a barricade for the English book-eater families. As they struggle with documentation, the book eaters are unable to leave the oppression of their families behind. Jarrow comes up with a solution to this, which involves sneaking across the Irish land border and escaping the UK.
Other land borders that Devon encounters include the border between England and Scotland and the coastal border at Brighton between land and sea. In the former, the land border represents a moment in which Devon leaves the familiar world and enters the unfamiliar. In the latter, the border between land and sea represents the limitless possibilities of the world beyond.
Other boundaries are less concrete but equally constricting. When Devon upsets Matley and questions his authority, he barricades her on his property, with armed guards ensuring that she doesn’t stray. In contrast to the political and geographical borders examined above, this border is subjective and controlled by a single, domineering entity. It acts as a microcosm of the UK land border that entraps the book eaters as a whole, serving the same function on an individual scale. These two imposed boundaries, the macrocosmic and the microcosmic, fit together in a dynamic pattern: Devon begins her journey by breaking down one barrier and completes it by breaking down the other.
