I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me

Overall I found this to be a good book. It's a decent debut. I think I expected it to have a little more of a creepy factor to it, and in reality I didn't find it to be creepy at all.

I struggled a bit during the ballet sections because I'm not familiar with the terms and had to keep stopping to get an idea of what was being described. I'm sure for those that have done ballet or are familiar with it, those sections will likely be more enjoyable. The cutthroat nature of professional ballet I felt was appropriately handled, but again I've never been into ballet at all, so I could be completely wrong haha.

The description makes it clear that this is a slow burn, but it was verrrry sloooow through a good chunk of it. It started to drag a little too much in the middle and I almost DNFd it but I was interested enough to want to know the ending. The last section of the book was very quick to get through and I wish some of the action and suspense had been spread through the book a little more to keep it from dragging.

There's a sequel that will be coming out and I think I might pick it up and see where the story goes.

Between the cover and the scene descriptions the author had trailed on Mastodon, I was expecting this book to be mostly gore. What I actually found on reading is that it's mostly a story of a very relatable character suffering in the isolation of having to be twice as good and still never fitting in due to everyone else's racism. With some very hard-to-read descriptions of just how brutal the competition of a top ballet school is, and frankly easier-to-read interludes of supernatural gore, all of which serve the human story.

It's also beautifully written, with the protagonist's internal conflict carrying through, and a lot of confusion about other characters' relationships and motives that feels like the confusion I would be experiencing in the protagonist/narrator's shoes rather than any flaw in the telling.

As straight storytelling, the climactic scene is preposterous, but as a continuation of the emotional rollercoaster up to that point it works perfectly.

I wasn't expecting this book to be my kind of thing, and now I can't wait for Shea's next one.