I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

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 slow-burn horror 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.

I’ve been looking forward to this book for a while. It has an assortment of my favorite things: an indulgent setting (Paris), a passionate main character who will do anything for her pursuit (dancer—and I’m an ex-dancer), a spooky season-appropriate premise.

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Now that I’m tuned into this sort of thing, it also sold for a lot at auction to its publishing house, meaning that this book was what editors were hungry for. That doesn’t always translate into a blockbuster, as there are a lot of factors like comps, timing, luck, etc,. but it does mean that it’s likely crafted to appeal to a wide variety of readers and is high quality across the board.

The book focuses on Laurence, a Black ballerina fighting for an apprenticeship spot at the Paris Ballet after fighting through the academy’s systemic racism and nepotism (ex: her best friend who is practically assured a spot because of her mother’s history as a soloist.) One day, she’s taken under the wing of a dancer who’s ascended the ranks and told the secret to their success—a river of blood washing through the Catacomb, which houses a deity you can make a deal with. Her deal is for charm and luck; Laurence’s deal ends up being for power. Naturally, someone dies and the curse starts to feel more like a burden than a blessing, and the being hungers for more and more from Laurence.

On its release date, I was one of the first to request I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me from my local library. I started it mid-week, but finished it past midnight this past Friday. Let’s start with what I loved.

ATMOSPHERE & WRITING

Overall, I love anything that leans into the heavy atmosphere of ballet—the tension, the beauty, the history. It’s why I did love Tiny Pretty Things and Black Swan and the like. It’s so insular, and such an incredible pursuit, but gets nowhere near the credit it deserves outside of a small, elite circle of people who hail it as the holy grail. It’s addictive in the sense that if you’re outside of the vernacular, you likely won’t get it.

Firstly, I definitely see the Ace of Spades comparison to I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me because some aspects of the unwelcoming atmosphere felt obvious to the point of heavy-handed. Still, Laurence’s devotion to the sport (yes, sport) was so all-consuming, and her talent so intense, that it was immediately clear she meant it when she told the other students she would rather die than give it up—a theme that resonated when the rest were like, "I’d be bummed but try to build a life outside of this." For her, it was ballet or nothing, and that all-or-nothing mindset was crucial to believingthe book.

I thought the prose was hit-or-miss. In the beginning, the character descriptions felt boring—long, brown hair or the like—but the writing got more and more creative as the book went on, actually. It gets even better with time, and I'd infinitely prefer that to the reverse.

This book was overall solid, and had some phenomenal gems of lines that felt like Hozier song lyrics at times—minimal and haunting. It wasn’t the entire book à la Maggie Stiefvater (my go-to beautiful writer) or April Genevieve Tucholke but the stunners were frequent enough for me to generally agree that the book is written in a lovely, evocative way. I especially loved her food and beverage descriptions when they went off to eat.

I felt similarly about I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me as I did about House of Hollow: you can just sink into the narrative and language and all that. It does get repetitive, relying on the same descriptors, but as a seasonal gal myself, that is completely and utterly what I was looking for.

DANCING & ACTION

One thing I thought I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me excelled at was the scenes in which Laure danced, and you could physically feel the flow state and her passion take her over. I personally love reading about passionate characters, but find that anything athletic (a sport, dancing, etc,.) can be hard to translate from physicality to the page. It’s just extremely difficult to write a bodily action well, which is why I praise authors who choreograph fight scenes and similar so spectacularly.

These dance scenes were spot-on. The pacing was engrossing, I felt swept away into what she was doing, and I felt that rush of adrenaline that showed you why{' '}she had gone so far to preserve what she loved. It epitomized showing not telling in terms of why she would bargain her soul or her dancing ability or what have you in order to keep going, even with the world against her. (I love a stubborn character, and the dancing was precise and clearly so the love of her life.)

As a note, you will probably not want to read this book if gore and body horror gross you out—but I generally fall into that category, and was pleasantly surprised that there wasn’t as much as I expected. If you can watch Yellowjackets, you can definitely read this.

THEMES & SYMBOLISM

Where this book shines, of course, is in its symbolism. Ballet dancers are so commodified and defined by their bodies that body horror is such a visceral place to go to illuminate some of those power structures. No matter what, they’re sacrificing something to get to the top, so why shouldn’t it be to a supernatural being who lives in a river of blood?

The discussions of racism and nepotism especially within the ballet were spot-on. Microaggressions were frequent. It felt similar to Ace of Spades but not as all-consuming.

CHARACTERS

The characters were fine. Laure was ambitious, which I adored, but she was also extremely selfish, which always bothered me. She fully disregarded her friends’ pain. That being said, the focus on the book is the too-high hurdles she has to jump over to get the same consideration, so I completely understood why she didn’t care even if it felt blatantly…shitty at times.

The frenemy status between her and her friend Coralie just hinges on a friendship that’s never actually there. They’re both resentful of each other, so I would have loved to see some warmth or history that made it clear what they were losing in letting their relationship drift.

I just thought Laure didn’t have much empathy for or consideration of others, which made her a bit hard to read, as my favorite characters tend to notice their friends or love interests in a more thoughtful way. I think because of the self-centeredness—which was driven by her passion, which I did love—the other characters tended to feel like cardboard cutouts. I loved her strong-willed dedication, but just thought she never ever gave a single thought to anyone else in the book, which for me made her hard to root for. Another reviewer noted that it was tough to read constant insecurity, which it was (although that also fit the tension.)

It’s very centered around female rage, so lovers of Sawkill Girls will likely adore I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me for the exact same reason.

THE STAKES & PLOT

While I thought the ballet stakes and worldbuilding in that aspect were done so phenomenally, I thought the paranormal and horror aspects of the book were pretty messy. That sounds harsh, but overall I enjoyed it and would buy a copy for reading in later Octobers. It reminded me a lot of The Ravens, which I adored. I'm hoping the sequel clears up a lot more.

The worldbuilding was extremely unclear when it related to the river of blood, and I found any descriptions of the actual Acheron mythology to be overly abstract. It did feel somewhat like the author threw in mentions of blood and bone to avoid having to commit to an internal logic of the system which would make it effective (which is totally fair, because I actually tend to do the same in my writing—and then struggle to flesh it out in later drafts.)

The main character got nosebleeds and internal violent thoughts as the bargain consumed more of her, but the novel never fully expressed what this supposedly-evil force wanted from her in exchange for her newfound power. She bargained her ability to dance, but what would happen if she failed? It never said, so it just felt like there was an explanation or two missing. Each time, she offered blood or her life or soul or something, but it never showed what that meant so it made it difficult to believe that anything was truly escalating. The sense of abstraction might have been eased with less frequent use of certain tentpole words like blood, bone, and the like, which do more heavy lifting on the atmosphere side than the literal plot side. I just needed more explanation for what was actually happening. The supernatural aspects were hard to picture, and thus took me out of the book.

The tension was mostly on the ballet and personal relationships side. What happened if others found out, rather than what would happen because she did the bargain itself? What if whoever was hunting bargain-makers came for her? etc,. Her loss of friendships. Her loss of morality. It just didn’t feel as clear as I wanted it to, so it felt like the paranormal catacombs aspect of the book was outlined more so than executed.

On that note, I also felt like her thinking re: the bargain was very black or white, so it didn’t have as much of an internal struggle as I thought the narrative promised. I either wanted it to lean full-on into the paranormal aspect being a regret or foreshadowing of sorts (and what the deity might do to enact vengeance or take her over) or be a spiral into madness à la Black Swan, but I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me was kind of an awkward in-between. There were still frustrating, tense moments but I was definitely expecting more from the execution. It is well-written and driven by the tension of Laurence needing and hungering to dance, and people who got in her way. I did love that they chose to format paranormal moments in bold, which made it really clear when something was a result of her bargain rather than her internal desires.

The ending felt abrupt, and the book frequently suffered from a lack of clarity. It was just really hard to follow at times. Still, I really am impressed by the book's scope, hook, and ambition, so am hoping to see all this addressed in the sequel.

OVERALL

Overall, I’d say read for a cutthroat ballet environment, stressful themes of systemic racism and what women have to do to be desired, and a subtly eerie atmosphere complemented by decadent scenes of Paris. As all these are generally elements I appreciate reading—and will appeal to a wide variety—I completely understand and throw my weight behind the hype for this book, especially for reading around spooky season. I did think the paranormal horror side wasn't as successful as it could have been, especially in regards to clarity, but I enjoyed the book enough that I could let the literal plot go. Coast on it for vibes, and a portrait of a young, ambitious dancer who will do anything to get to the top. It’s heavy-handed for sure, which may affect whether you’ll like it or not.

Overall, I’d buy a copy to read again, and would love to book club it so I could iron out exactly what I loved and didn’t like. The author does include trigger warnings for those who need them, as the book obviously includes violence, blood, and the like.

Recommended for fans of:

Black Swan (movie); Yellowjackets (TV); Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand; House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland; Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé; Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton.