Eat the Ones You Love

Shell Pine is thirty-three, back in her childhood bedroom in Northside Dublin, and thoroughly humiliated by life. She's lost her graphic design job, ended a seven-year relationship with her fiancé Gav, and moved back in with her parents and younger sisters. During a dispiriting trip to the Woodbine Crown — a crumbling, condemned shopping mall that should have closed years ago but somehow keeps limping along — she spots a HELP NEEDED sign in the window of a florist shop. She goes in. She gets the job. The florist is Neve — beautiful, magnetic, obsessed with her craft in a way that's slightly unnerving. Shell is instantly smitten. What Shell doesn't know is that Neve belongs to Baby: a sentient orchid who has wound his vines show more through the entire structure of the Woodbine Crown, watching everything, feeling everything, and occasionally eating people. Baby narrates much of the novel — which is as strange and wonderful as it sounds. Described as Little Shop of Horrors meets The Ruins, set in suburban Irish millennial malaise. Blurbed by VE Schwab. Irish debut author's first adult novel after decorated YA career.

[May contain spoilers]
Baby's relationship with Neve functions as an extended metaphor for an abusive controlling relationship — he is possessive, obsessive, and frames his consumption of people as love. He has infiltrated Neve so deeply she can barely separate herself from him. Shell's growing connection with Neve threatens Baby's hold, and he starts making plans for Shell too — the body horror involves the plant literally growing inside people, a creeping physical transformation that mirrors emotional possession. The ending is genuinely unsettling rather than triumphant — there is feminist action taken against Baby, but Griffin refuses a clean resolution, leaving readers to sit with something uncomfortable. The mall itself is essentially a character — Baby as the nervous system of a dying retail ecosystem, both exploiting and grieving it.
What I think: This is lyrical, atmospheric, genuinely original body horror with a queer love story at its centre and a brilliant central conceit in Baby as narrator. It's short and sharp at under 300 pages. The Irish slang and setting give it real texture. Some readers found the abuse allegory complicated by Baby being gendered, and the ending divisive. show less

4.5 stars! When this comes out, I predict that it’s going to be a massive hit! Eat the Ones You Love is for fans of deliciously “weird” books, such as Mona Awad’s Bunny. I also think readers who enjoy the Netflix series You will appreciate this, too!

Rather than being a non-stop horror-fest, Eat the Ones You Love is primarily an exploration of human relationships, both platonic and romantic, with some unsettling body horror thrown in. There are very few actual plant-eating-human scenes. Instead, it’s very thoughtful and contemplative, laced with a creepiness that doesn’t let up.

Sara Maria Griffin’s writing is so enjoyable to read, she could honestly write about paint drying and I would be fully invested. And, because show more Griffin is an Irish author, it’s also very Irish! As an American reader, I learned so many words that were new to me, which I loved.

Griffin took a big risk and did something really unusual that I’ve never come across before in a book. She inserts a first person perspective inside a third person narrative! I think it’s a huge part of why this book is so fantastic. The story begins ordinarily enough, written in third person and introducing us to Shell, the main character. And then the second chapter hits and WHAM - we’re hearing from Baby, the shop’s all-knowing plant monster, who is more mobile than you would think. He’s everywhere - even able to observe Shell through a bouquet of flowers! So creepy! A really sinister first person (or should I say first plant?) perspective!

Baby’s voice continues to interject into the third person perspective throughout the rest of the book. Just when you start to relax into the story, Baby’s all knowing “I” pops up to put you on edge yet again. (It always happened when I least expected it, and it always made me jump, sometimes even exclaiming out loud.) Like a virus that invades but lies dormant, Baby is always present, lurking under the surface - both of the narrative AND the dilapidated shopping mall setting.

Eat the Ones You Love is an exploration of its themes, rather than a moralizing tale that takes a certain position. Consent and coercion in relationships comes to mind, as does codependency and addiction. I usually like a clear message that I can perceive by the time I come to the end of the books I read. So when I finished Eat the Ones You Love, I felt a little let down by the ending. Upon reflection, though, I realized I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and that was almost certainly because Griffin was careful not to be too heavy handed with its messaging.

Thank you to the publishers and Goodreads for the physical ARC of this book! show less

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this on ebook from NetGalley.

Thoughts: DNF, I got about 40% of the way through this one and then set it aside. My biggest issue was the constant changing of POV without any indicator you were changing POV. There were no lines or spaces between paragraphs, page breaks, or anything to let you know the point of view was switching. You would just switch POV in the next paragraph in the middle of a page. This was all over the place. Sometimes we were reading from the main character's point of view, sometimes the plant's, sometimes the flower shop's owner (Neve), sometimes Neve's former girlfriend. I had no idea who we were hearing from most of the time, and it was very show more confusing. Maybe there were formatting issues with the review copy, and that's why this was so confusing? Giving it 3* with that assumption.

The story follows Shell, who has both been laid off from her job and ended her long term relationship with her boyfriend in a very short space of time. She finds herself living with her parents again and drifting as she tries to find a new job and some sort of purpose. Her wandering leads her to a florist shop that is looking for help.

As mentioned above, the biggest issue for me here was how confusing and difficult this was to read, but there were other issues for me as well. The pacing on this is very slow. You know there is a sentient plant pretty quickly, but not a lot actually happens. The characters are hard to engage with and seem to keep you at a distance. This is more of a slow burn horror, I guess? Not sure because I just got so bored with it I couldn't stick with the story.

I did like the old run down shopping mall setting; there is some nostalgia there for me. I think the idea here could be a good one if executed properly; this gives serious Little Shop of Horror vibes. However, I was just dreading sitting down to read this because it was so uneven and confusing, so I decided to stop.

My Summary (3/5): Overall while I appreciated the nostalgic run down mall setting and the premise, I found this confusing to read and slow and ended up putting it down 40% of the way in. I could never tell when the POV was shifting, and it left me re-reading portions of the book over and over again trying to figure out who was talking. That coupled with all the additional viewpoints that get added as the story continued made this feel slow, messy, and confusing. I never got creepy horror vibes from it. I don't plan on checking out any more books by this author. show less

Some of Griffin's phrases, scenes (the flowers sprouting from skin!), and portrayals of relationship dynamics and belonging, plus the decaying mall setting, were captivating. Overall, the dialogue (and email communication) dispelled the magic. Appreciated the offbeat and unplanned companion while visiting my hometown.
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She would stand tall and emit light so powerful that all colour was changed by her.

He meets the pain of others with love. The things he has overcome are not what he wears in his manner. It is a deep feat to move with grace when you have been granted little to none.

I would have liked more character growth, but it was less about the *people* and more about the Little Shop of Horrors aspect, I enjoyed that it was set in Ireland and we got more nuance of what's happening outside and around the plant creature.

Dark, immersive and saturated in raw, unflinching emotion and our relationships with others. The multiple POVs were creative and flowed so well with the style of the book. Also for anyone that grew up under the blinding lights of retail and created a weird little ecosystem that was oddly comforting and find yourself nostalgic for.

Too long. Overwrought. This needed huge chunks edited out and the omniscient plant? So much describing of “oh I am so evil” but something just falls so painfully flat. This was like being inside the stream of consciousness of a narcissist: nowhere near as interesting as the narrator believes itself to be.