Welcome friend! As fans of Kylie Lee Baker, we had to read and discuss her latest book, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng. This one touches on sensitive themes so do look closely to the content notes and trigger warnings before you dive in. Check out the synopsis below and read our discussion that follows.
Kylie Lee Baker | Goodreads
Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater.
Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open.
Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers begin finding bat carcasses at their crime scene clean-ups. But Cora can’t ignore the fact that all their recent clean-ups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
Soon Cora will learn: you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.
Some Content Notes to be aware of (pulled of Storygraph; approved by the author): Mental illness, Grief, Murder, Blood, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic (COVID-19), Gore, Hate crime, Racism
Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng – Discussion
Ariel: The moment we knew about Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, we knew we had to pick it up because we are both big fans of the author, Kylie Lee Baker! I was particularly excited to see how her step into adult horror would be after two very good YA fantasies. It was cool to see how Kyle Lee Baker’s writing style has sharpened and developed over the years, and I think this book was the most moving for me so far.
Kriti: We love Kylie and I agree she was so sharp here! Bat Eater and Other Names of Cora Zeng is a gut-wrenching horror novel that explores grief, cultural identity, and supernatural terror in the wake of pandemic-fueled racism. I was not prepared for what it had to offer and almost a month after finishing it, I am still thinking about it.
I agree- this book definitely sticks with you long after the final page. Typically I don’t like to read books about the pandemic, and I like to avoid them in favor of reading something else. However, I made the exception with Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, and I’m very glad I did. A lot of the dread at the start of the book for me was when the characters really didn’t think the pandemic would last longer than two weeks, and from there I just knew the horror would grow from there. The medical anxiety that Cora felt resonated a lot with me, and that also heightened the tension.
Cora had thought about being a cleaner but after her sister’s brutal death, she takes up the job of a crime scene cleaner in Chinatown. She surrounds herself with death every day, scrubbing away blood and remnants of violent deaths but never really washing away her own pain. This was so heartbreaking and set the stage for what was to come.
A large theme of the horror in this book is that while the ghosts and the gore and guts are scary, the real evil is the racism that Cora and her community face for being Asian in a time that has increased levels of anti-Asian hate crimes. I remember hearing about these horrific acts on the news shortly after the start of the pandemic, and that became a perfect backdrop to this book that kept the horror within a realistic reach.
I thought about that time too. The term “bat eater” carries so much weight. A slur tied to racist rhetoric during the pandemic, it forms a clear demarcation between them and others. As the story progresses, it became clear that some people were using it literally to justify their hate crimes. The violence in the story isn’t random—it’s targeted, personal, and painful.
I haven’t read many ghost stories and the spiritual element with a month where hungry ghosts prowl the city was uncanny, scary and jumpy. There is one particular scene that I will never forget. Cora is at a gas station. She has called her aunt and explained to her that she is haunted by a ghost and her aunt tells her it’s not who she thinks it is. “Run!”
I didn’t know anything about East Asian culture around death and ghosts and I found this book’s delivery of it very heart wrenching and emotional. It is so sad that there are hungry ghosts and the things that make these ghosts hungry. How burning some paper for our lost loved ones can bring them solace. I loved this concept and how it was explored in a time of a pandemic through the lens of a community that was unjustly targeted.
I loved Cora’s friends, Henry and Yifei, and the support network they provided Cora even in her darkest moments. While they only started off as coworkers, they quickly became a found family and I loved how they could be comedic relief for Cora. Cora’s Auntie Zheng was also a great, no-nonsense, support person for Cora even if they didn’t match up totally on worldview. However, with these three supporting Cora, she was able to pin down the source of the mysterious killings and the source of her hauntings.
Me too!! Cora’s relationship with Auntie Zheng, Henry and Yifei was meaningful for me. Harvey was a favorite of mine. He was juvenile and hopeful in an innocent way and his ending will always haunt me. Yifei’s past was traumatizing too. We got such a broad spectrum of immigrant experiences here.
While I know we will buddy read whatever book comes next, I really hope that Kylie Lee Baker dives into horror again, because this was a moving book for me. The realities of anti-Asian hate on the rise and the realities of medical anxiety in the middle of a pandemic along the backdrop of hauntings and ghosts and gore was a powerful mix.
I am super excited for Japanese Gothic!
Thanks for reading our discussion! Let us know what you think of this book and add it to your Goodreads if you would like to read it.
Check out other book reviews of Kylie’s books below:
Also: this interview with Kylie about The Keeper of Night and The Empress of Time.
Many thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy to Kriti for an honest reveiw.
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