To Be Devoured by Sara Tantlinger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Turkey vultures are my absolute favorite animals, so I was drawn to this book with the promise of reading a story featuring them. I came to this story because I wanted to read a short book about my favorite animal, but I stayed for the compelling character drama dissecting grief and obsession. The way that the main character tried to cope with all the traumas in her life through the escapism of pretending to be a vulture was really interesting, and it was chilling in a train wreck sort of way to see her obsess slowly spiral out of sanity.
The prose was beautiful and, while this book is very gross and very gory, I never once felt like it was gratuitous. This was my first real foray into horror, which is a genre that I tend to avoid just because I personally prefer light, fun reads. I think this was the best possible introduction I could have had to horror because it combined some of my favorite things to read: LGBT main characters and interesting character studies, plus it didn't hurt that almost every page discussed philosophies about the coolest bird. I can't say that this book completely sold me on the horror genre, because one book can never represent an entire genre of stories, but I can say that this book made me feel empowered to check out other stories like it.
I was tempted to give this book four stars just because of the ways that vultures are portrayed as wrathful animals in this book, but I realized almost immediately that that would be foolish; I have to leave my personal biases at the door. This is a book about a woman losing her sanity by projecting her problems onto the birds outside of her house, and it executes that idea masterfully. Everything this book promises to you is delivered, and it is gut-wrenching every step of the way. It absolutely earns those five stars, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to dip their toes into horror with something that is short and compelling all the way through.
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