Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
by Kylie Lee Baker
Cora Zeng is a Chinese American girl navigating a suddenly hostile world as COVID-19 spreads and the anti-Asian racism that comes with it gets directed at her and her family. The horror is real in more ways than one.
“The virus didn’t change who people were. It just gave them permission to be who they already were.”
What It Actually Felt Like
This is so much more than a horror book. The horror elements are there and they work but what the book is actually doing is bearing witness to an experience that a lot of people lived through and that deserves to be documented honestly. Kylie Lee Baker writes about what it felt like to be Asian American in that specific moment with a clarity that made me stop and sit more than once.
Impactful and meaningful and beautifully written. Do not skip the author’s note. That’s a note I mean seriously.
The Honest Part
Some sections are deliberately hard to read. That’s by design. Lean into it.
Who This Is For
Genuinely everyone. But especially readers who want horror that has something real to say beyond the scares.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Impactful and meaningful. Don’t skip the author’s note.
Tags horror, literary fiction, pandemic, Asian American experience, social commentary, mood: heavy and impactful
