A sapphic love story involving a flesh-eating orchid should have been an immediate five stars for me. Eat the Ones You Love has a dying shopping mall, messy relationships, queer women, a sentient plant named Baby, and a whole lot to say about love, hunger, and possession. I liked it. I just kept waiting for all of those pieces to become something I loved.

Shell is newly single, unemployed, and back living with her parents when she sees a HELP NEEDED sign in the window of a flower shop at the local mall. She takes the job and quickly becomes interested in Neve, the beautiful and mysterious florist running the shop.

Unfortunately, Neve already has someone obsessed with her.

That someone is Baby, a sentient orchid growing inside the mall who loves Neve so much that he wants to consume her.

Literally.

The concept is easily my favorite thing about this book. I loved the way desire and consumption become almost indistinguishable. Baby doesn't just want Neve around. He wants to possess her completely, and the book plays with that same kind of hunger in its human relationships too. Everyone seems to want something from someone else, whether that's love, attention, security, sex, or simply somewhere to belong.

I also LOVED the dying mall setting. There is something inherently creepy about a shopping center slowly emptying out while the few remaining employees continue showing up every day. The whole place feels like it's decaying around them while Baby's roots continue spreading through it, which is such a good image.

But for a book about a giant carnivorous orchid eating people, I wanted the plant to be a much bigger presence.

A lot of the story focuses on Shell, Neve, and the relationships between the mall employees. I didn't necessarily dislike that, but every time Baby appeared, the book immediately became more interesting to me. I kept waiting for the plant horror to completely take over.

I think that's ultimately where my three stars come from. The book I actually got is much more interested in loneliness, desire, relationships, and people feeling stuck than it is in being an absolutely unhinged killer-plant horror novel.

And I can appreciate that.

I just wanted it to be weirder.