Eat The Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin
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Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I think Griff (Sarah Maria Griffin) is one of the few authors that can get me to enjoy horror. I don’t read a lot of it and it is not a genre I pick, but for me, her books remind me in some ways of Latinamerican authors (I know, I know she’s Irish) with that magical realism, but with an added dollop of creepy (and thankfully without the misogyny).
Eat The Ones You Love is about malls that are dying, and about plants and loving others. I remember when I was a teenager there weren’t enough malls initially, the only one to hang out was an old one made for more “adults” with shops that were more utilitarian, like camera equipment, and haberdashery and so forth. And then they opened a new mall with a cinema and all fancy shops including a Sears and a Liverpool which were like fancy department stores. It was the place to hang out during your weekends or Friday’s after school. All the cool ones did. And then there came a third mall, that was in the rich part of the city, which meant a majority of the shops were high end so as a teen you would go and dream of being rich in them. But, many years later, I’ve back to all 3 malls and they’re not as busy, shops closed and it feels more like ghost town.
Why am I telling you all about my teenage mall adventures? Because I remembered them while I read this book. It was a piece of nostalgia, it was going to the cinema and coming out late once everything had closed and wandering the mall half lit and so quiet to get to the entrance. And maybe some readers will have no idea what that feels like, but then please read this book because that feeling was captured here incredibly well.
Now, I have never been a florist and I am not that good at keeping plants alive, but a family member was, and I have seen her make bouquets, so I cna also say that the flower shop was wonderful to read about.
So, now that the nostalgia revival has gone through, what is the story about? We have Shell who has “failed” at life and has to start again and so the possibility to work in the mall and the flower shop open her to knowing Neve, whom she finds very attractive. But she also finds the flowers and the life in the mall to be a good change for her. But there is something else lurking in the mall and the flower shop. Baby. Baby is an orchid with a taste for human flesh and also their feelings. It almost feels like hungry to be loved, hungry to feel and to feed on those feelings.
The story is creepy and intoxicating and it is interesting to read. If you’ve read previous works of Griff then you will know the type fo emotion heavy writing that makes you feel things intensely and so be prepared for it.