The Better to Eat You With
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From award-winning author Tehlor Mejia comes a spine-tingling tale of transformation, mystery, and the monsters we face—inside and out.
What big teeth…
For twelve-year-old Evan, summertime has always meant carefree days with her family and unlimited time with her best friend, Billie. This year, with her parents on the brink of divorce, she’s staying at Billie’s summer cabin. But Billie only seems to care about crushes these days, and to make matters worse, Evan’s mom’s health obsession has climbed to new heights. The more Evan tries to appease her mom and control her hunger, the sharper it seems to get, until it threatens to drag her under.
As Evan tries to cling to the good things in her life, a sinister presence in the woods begins to stir. Kids are scared, and adults think everyone should go home. Determined to stay, Evan starts hunting for the creature and begins to wonder—is it just her imagination, or is the monster inside her?
A SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"Absolutely haunting!"—New York Times bestselling author Delilah S. Dawson on It Happened to Anna
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this expressive work of psychological horror, Mejia (It Happened to Anna) explores one tween's grappling for bodily autonomy throughout a gripping summer-set mystery. Though 12-year-old Evan Rio's parents haven't officially separated, she knows it's coming: her father is full of hollow cheer, while her mother, wrestling with body image issues, redirects her anxiety toward Evan under the guise of bonding through restrictive diets and exercise. Instead of spending the summer together as usual, Evan is sent to stay with her best friend, Billie Barnard, also 12, in lakeside resort town Sonrisa. While Billie is preoccupied by first crushes, however, Evan's worries about her family fester, exacerbating her anorexia, body dysmorphia, and internalized shame. Meanwhile, the citizens of Sonrisa attempt to uncover the cause of mysterious claw marks, paw prints, and goose carcasses appearing around town, as well as nocturnal howling. Suspenseful atmosphere raises the stakes of Evan's hair-raising investigation, while empathetic prose realistically depicts Evan's experience with disordered eating, including her rationalizations of her family situation, her longing for control over her body and her circumstances, and her struggles with asking for help. Characters are intersectionally diverse. Ages 10–up.
