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pearloz's review against another edition
4.0
Ultimately, the end was dissatisfying, but I gotta say, everything leading to the conclusion was interesting and fun. The premise of the book was intriguing (people are born with 100 crystals in their bodies; as they age, they lose crystals--death at 0) and I was surprised it could be sustained for the duration. I think the most fascinating part of the book was the idea of a city that grows so rapidly, it literally engulfs towns and villages, that buildings spring up spontaneously and start to fill with people wearing sunglasses pushing strollers--it was like reality swallowing a dream. I'd really like to see a sequel that focuses on the spontaneously growing city. I'm loving all these Two Dollar Radio books. Can't wait to read more.
cryo_guy's review
4.0
I found this at Moon Palace Books when I went to go buy the 3rd volume of The Familiar (a commitment I'm not confident I'll be able to uphold). I absolutely love Shane Jones' Light Boxes (I've read it several times in the past few years) and so I thought hey it's time to get another one. I wasn't quite sure about making the purchase at first, but the cover of the book really pushed me over the edge (as many have). So that if anything counts in favor of the book.
I'll start with a quote from the back by HTML Giant: "In Jones' world, a range of colors lives inside each person--in fact, that very rainbow gives the body its power, its life. And although death will one day drain those colors from each person, Crystal Eaters reminds us that life itself is a luminous thing."
At first I thought this would translate into personalities and psyches. In the book a range of colors does live inside each person, but you only see it when they suffer--physically or mentally. The colors don't so much represent psychological factors, but the primal life forces that reside in each person. For that reason it wasn't as complex in ways that I assumed; rather, its depth materializes in the bonds of family, the conflict between the village and city mirrored by an ancient battle between the sun and the mythic black crystal, and the meaningless suffering the characters cope with. It's very similar to Light Boxes in that respect and I found myself vicariously experiencing the frustration of figuring out what the (or a) normal way of handling such circumstances were for the characters. Crystal Eaters reminds us that life itself is a luminous thing, but only at the cost of the jagged shadows that distort it and fascinate us.
Overall, I enjoyed the book but not as much as Light Boxes. And although it shares similar themes and an ambiance of absurdism, I think it's different enough and cultivates its own aesthetic enough that they are not mere replicas of one another. My one major criticism is that it could have developed one or two characters more to really draw the story together or make a strong stab into the existential nothingness of the individual, but it chose rather to focus on the family as an overarching structure--which works too (maybe actually works or even works instead). Despite the lack of whatever it is I want, the individuals in the family are compelling on their own--the dying mother a haunting symbol of family unity, the world-worn father who mistakes stoicism for virtue, the older brother who starts a revolution but fails, and the little sister who stumbles into her brother's footsteps with a heightened sense of urgency and innocence. Its other strengths lie in its fantastical evocative images that revolve around crystals and parodies of modern day systems and structures considered "normal" (prisons, politicians, drugs). Jones is really successful at putting you in his world.
As a reader, I became frustrated with people I wanted to care about and hear more about, and I also found myself getting excited, apprehensive about their lattice-like sufferings. I would recommend this to fans of fantastical short novels of vibrant imagery but also a masterless world--but I can't help but think about how good Light Boxes is even as I write this. I'm eager to read his other book Daniel Fights A Hurricane. Here are a few of my fav passages:
"To not think hm wonder what's my count, while you're alive? I don't think you can ignore the thoughts of zero. It's scary to be alive. Sometimes, if I close my eyes and clear my head and just concentrate, like just really concentrate on what it would be like to be empty, to not have to live, to not get out of bed, my entire body goes into a kind of shock. It knows. I can feel what it will be like."
"It's a brittle corner soon to be dust. Pants shoves a sliver under his big toenail until it knifes the flesh. pacing in his cell, he bends his toe inside his sneaker, the crystal cracking and cutting, slitting open skin. He prepares this way for the health meeting because he has to talk during the health meeting. it's difficult enough to listen to hundreds of words exiting a guard's mouth about god, but to return them sober among peers and the supervisor is nearly impossible. It's hard to look at people who have faces. Besides, he thinks he's leaving this place sometime soon and one last health meeting is doable."
"He can't turn his head off. When his neck can't be pressed further, his legs fully extended, his body goes limp and he rolls onto his back. For a moment, he sees nothing, and that feels good. Hands on his chest he breaths in bursts that raise and lower his chest in such a dramatic fashion that he screams for help even though he knows the guards can't hear him or don't care to. He thinks he should have been a better son, and should have been a better brother, but he did the best he could, and it's only in this present moment, looking back, can he think such a non-helpful thought as I should have done better. In the past you can change yourself into someone better, or worse, but not in the present moment, no, that's impossible because the memory can't be molded yet into what you want it to be, and Pants thinks this, and laughs, and he moves his hand across the always cool prison floor imagining the dirt from the crystal mine as he breaks apart a layer of static."
"The sun pierced by buildings wrapped in tornadic filth."
I'll start with a quote from the back by HTML Giant: "In Jones' world, a range of colors lives inside each person--in fact, that very rainbow gives the body its power, its life. And although death will one day drain those colors from each person, Crystal Eaters reminds us that life itself is a luminous thing."
At first I thought this would translate into personalities and psyches. In the book a range of colors does live inside each person, but you only see it when they suffer--physically or mentally. The colors don't so much represent psychological factors, but the primal life forces that reside in each person. For that reason it wasn't as complex in ways that I assumed; rather, its depth materializes in the bonds of family, the conflict between the village and city mirrored by an ancient battle between the sun and the mythic black crystal, and the meaningless suffering the characters cope with. It's very similar to Light Boxes in that respect and I found myself vicariously experiencing the frustration of figuring out what the (or a) normal way of handling such circumstances were for the characters. Crystal Eaters reminds us that life itself is a luminous thing, but only at the cost of the jagged shadows that distort it and fascinate us.
Overall, I enjoyed the book but not as much as Light Boxes. And although it shares similar themes and an ambiance of absurdism, I think it's different enough and cultivates its own aesthetic enough that they are not mere replicas of one another. My one major criticism is that it could have developed one or two characters more to really draw the story together or make a strong stab into the existential nothingness of the individual, but it chose rather to focus on the family as an overarching structure--which works too (maybe actually works or even works instead). Despite the lack of whatever it is I want, the individuals in the family are compelling on their own--the dying mother a haunting symbol of family unity, the world-worn father who mistakes stoicism for virtue, the older brother who starts a revolution but fails, and the little sister who stumbles into her brother's footsteps with a heightened sense of urgency and innocence. Its other strengths lie in its fantastical evocative images that revolve around crystals and parodies of modern day systems and structures considered "normal" (prisons, politicians, drugs). Jones is really successful at putting you in his world.
As a reader, I became frustrated with people I wanted to care about and hear more about, and I also found myself getting excited, apprehensive about their lattice-like sufferings. I would recommend this to fans of fantastical short novels of vibrant imagery but also a masterless world--but I can't help but think about how good Light Boxes is even as I write this. I'm eager to read his other book Daniel Fights A Hurricane. Here are a few of my fav passages:
"To not think hm wonder what's my count, while you're alive? I don't think you can ignore the thoughts of zero. It's scary to be alive. Sometimes, if I close my eyes and clear my head and just concentrate, like just really concentrate on what it would be like to be empty, to not have to live, to not get out of bed, my entire body goes into a kind of shock. It knows. I can feel what it will be like."
"It's a brittle corner soon to be dust. Pants shoves a sliver under his big toenail until it knifes the flesh. pacing in his cell, he bends his toe inside his sneaker, the crystal cracking and cutting, slitting open skin. He prepares this way for the health meeting because he has to talk during the health meeting. it's difficult enough to listen to hundreds of words exiting a guard's mouth about god, but to return them sober among peers and the supervisor is nearly impossible. It's hard to look at people who have faces. Besides, he thinks he's leaving this place sometime soon and one last health meeting is doable."
"He can't turn his head off. When his neck can't be pressed further, his legs fully extended, his body goes limp and he rolls onto his back. For a moment, he sees nothing, and that feels good. Hands on his chest he breaths in bursts that raise and lower his chest in such a dramatic fashion that he screams for help even though he knows the guards can't hear him or don't care to. He thinks he should have been a better son, and should have been a better brother, but he did the best he could, and it's only in this present moment, looking back, can he think such a non-helpful thought as I should have done better. In the past you can change yourself into someone better, or worse, but not in the present moment, no, that's impossible because the memory can't be molded yet into what you want it to be, and Pants thinks this, and laughs, and he moves his hand across the always cool prison floor imagining the dirt from the crystal mine as he breaks apart a layer of static."
"The sun pierced by buildings wrapped in tornadic filth."
roroth's review
3.0
Book 14 of 2019 is finished! I purchased Crystal Eaters by Shane Jones on my “booknerd trip” to Columbus in April at @twodollarradio. It is listed as an “allegory, fable, touching family saga, and poetic sci-fi adventure” which sounded very interesting so I picked it up. The basis of being born with 100 crystals inside you and you lose them throughout your life by getting hurt or getting sick until you reached ZERO was fascinating. The mother in the story was sick and was super close to zero so the son tried to get her to eat these black crystals which were rumored to make your “count” higher again but basically just gave you a high that made you feel like your count was more than it actually was. I also thought it was cool that the chapters and pages went down as you read instead of up like the crystal counts did.
I wish this story was what the author focused on but I felt like he added the story about the sun getting closer to Earth and the city closing in on the village these crystal people lived and it just got to be too many stories in one story if that makes sense at all.
I rated this another 3 stars because of it not staying on track throughout the story and I don’t feel like I would read this again. I would definitely pick up more by Shane Jones though.
I wish this story was what the author focused on but I felt like he added the story about the sun getting closer to Earth and the city closing in on the village these crystal people lived and it just got to be too many stories in one story if that makes sense at all.
I rated this another 3 stars because of it not staying on track throughout the story and I don’t feel like I would read this again. I would definitely pick up more by Shane Jones though.
jpegging's review against another edition
2.0
I'm disappointed because the bones of this world and the building done on the crystals and the encroaching city and the sun that hates the world are immensely interesting and it's all wrapped up in gross crystal body horror that never feels real enough, family drama, and gang rape of a dying woman as a plot device--none of which actually really goes anywhere or means anything.
megghonk's review against another edition
1.0
I don't believe I've ever given a book 1 star but I just really didn't like this one. I wanted to support a local publishing company/bookstore and they were selling mystery books for $10. I got this one and I thought the premise was very cool. Everyone has a crystal count and as you get injured or sick over your lifetime, your crystals deplete and once you hit zero it's light's out. Remy's mom is sick and her crystal count is going down rapidly. Rumor has it that there's black crystals that can actually add to your count so Remy sets out to find one. But the plot is much more than that.
This book is a self-proclaimed allegory and maybe I'm just too simple to understand it. Definitely not my style of writing either. Way too "out there" for my tastes but some people would probably love it.
I did like the setup of the book. The chapters and page numbers move down instead of up to simulate the crystal depletion. That was my favorite part.
This book is a self-proclaimed allegory and maybe I'm just too simple to understand it. Definitely not my style of writing either. Way too "out there" for my tastes but some people would probably love it.
I did like the setup of the book. The chapters and page numbers move down instead of up to simulate the crystal depletion. That was my favorite part.
sam8834's review against another edition
5.0
Light Boxes will probably forever be my favorite work by Shane Jones, but with Crystal Eaters, he's achieved the same urgency and magic as his other books. He continually takes the experimental side of contemporary fiction and grounds it in accessible allegory, making his work more interesting than most of what's out there now. I usually don't care for child protagonists, but in Remy, we get (for once) an atypical adolescent narrator. And where many contemporaries writing in this vein don't elicit empathy for their characters, Jones really evokes a sadness for this family that readers will feel, despite the unreality of the story's setting and premise.
I'd been waiting for this book all year, and it didn't disappoint.
I'd been waiting for this book all year, and it didn't disappoint.
ulogil's review
I don't know what's going on. Everything feels disconnected and not very easy on the mind to comprehend. It's like reading a story without a fully built world. So you're only half comprehending.
Also the self harm was hard to read.
Also the self harm was hard to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm
dlrogna's review
4.0
Solid, emotional build. I thought chapter 6 in particular was wonderfully crafted.