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  • How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann book cover
  • How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann book cover
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How to Be Eaten

by Maria Adelmann

Fairy-tale survivors in a New York support group

$17.09 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Book club selection

    A Belletrist Book Club Pick

    Selected as a Belletrist Book Club pick.

  • Editorial selection

    An NPR Best Book of the Year

    Named one of NPR's Best Books of the Year.

AlbakiReads Editorial

Fairy-tale survivors in a New York support group

In present-day New York, five women whose lives echo familiar fairy tales gather to discuss trauma. Their stories recast recognizable motifs—a wolf, a candy house, a blue-bearded billionaire, and a televised search for romance—in contemporary terms. As the women assess one another’s accounts, the group becomes a setting for questions about memory, secrets, shared experience, and whether they can help each other. The novel uses this meeting to revisit childhood stories through the experiences of adult women, bringing fairy-tale imagery into conversation with trauma and gender.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in contemporary retellings of familiar fairy tales.
  • For readers drawn to fiction about trauma, memory, and women’s relationships.
  • For readers who enjoy stories structured around a group whose members share personal histories.

Themes

Fairy-tale retellingsTrauma and memoryWomen’s relationshipsGender and storytelling

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

This darkly funny and provocative novel reimagines classic fairy tale characters as modern women in a support group for trauma.

In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy tale ending. And Raina's love story will shock them all.

Though the women start out wary of one another, judging each other's stories, gradually they begin to realize that they may have more in common than they supposed . . . What really brought them here? What secrets will they reveal? And is it too late for them to rescue each other?

​Dark, edgy, and wickedly funny, this debut for readers of Carmen Maria Machado, Kristen Arnett, and Kelly Link takes our coziest, most beloved childhood stories, exposes them as anti-feminist nightmares, and transforms them into a new kind of myth for grown-up women.

Named a Best Book of the Month by TIME Magazine & Glamour - A Belletrist Book Club Pick
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