I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
There will be blood.
Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain origin story.
Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood.
The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom.
But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.
From debut author Jamison Shea comes I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me, a twisted dark fantasy that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black teenage ballerina Laure Mesny makes a deal with an ancient evil to fulfill her heart's desire in this sharp, gruesome debut. Laure, a self-proclaimed perfectionist, attends the Ballet Academy of Paris. After dedicating her life to the art form, she yearns to take center stage during one of her school's productions so that she can prove herself worthy of a spot in the Paris Ballet. But years of being overlooked in favor of her rich, white peers prompts Laure to seek drastic measures. When an opportunity arises, Laure—at the suggestion of a classmate—ventures into the city's eerie underground Catacombs and bathes in a pulsating river of blood belonging to an eldritch god. But the power she obtains demands more sacrifice than she expected—or is willing to give. As new powers consume her, Laure begins literally transforming into a vicious creature beyond her imagining, threatening everything she's worked so hard for. Shea's raw, tension-filled emotional roller-coaster of a novel delivers frighteningly gory depictions of body horror. While the scares are grisly, Shea skillfully uses them to reveal hard truths surrounding institutions that capitalize on exclusion, and to depict the lengths one teen goes for acceptance and recognition. Ages 14–up.
