As you might have guessed from the title, this one is weird.

In Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin, Michelle “Shell” Pine is at loose ends after breaking up with her longtime boyfriend, moving back in with her parents, and getting laid off. She manages to get a job at a local florist shop until she gets back on her feet, but finds that she really likes Neve, the shop owner, who’s gorgeous and interesting and makes Shell feel something again at last. However, the mall in which the shop is located is struggling, rumored to be closing soon, which makes the working environment feel tense. More than that, Shell soon gets the sense that Neve is hiding something. She’s right; deep inside the mall, long buried in secrecy, is Baby, the sentient orchid who is hungry for more than what he has, and willing to do anything to get what he wants.

If you work retail, you’ll relate to this. Well, not to all of this, I hope. But I liked those aspects of it, the charm and stress, the drudgery and complexity of working in a small business. Griffin captures that perfectly, as well as integrates a lot of camaraderie among the retail workers at the mall. I like the little community they make up; it makes for a good cast.

I also liked Shell and Neve. Shell is the protagonist, and you get to know her well, seeing her desire to feel happiness again and to find a new path after so many changes in her life. She’s likeable enough, though my reading experience was tempered by the fact that I knew long before she did what genre of story she was in. And as for Neve, she’s a good character too, one who’s made choices I might not have, but which were still understandable in the moment. You also feel empathy for her, as she’s stuck in such a bizarre situation.

A situation which, as the reader and not a character, you understand intimately, thanks to the scenes from Baby’s perspective. He’s such a sinister yet intriguing character, with a distinctively wicked voice. Seeing through his eyes—literally—is so eerie. He’s an eldritch horror of a sentient creature, of course, but there’s something about him that strikes me as very human, too. The way he views Neve as his, the way he’s so possessive and controlling and entitled in regards to her life, is incredibly reminiscent of a human in a toxic relationship. When reading from Baby’s perspective, you’re basically reading the thoughts of an abuser, so you know with each passing page that surely things are about to escalate. It’s so creepy, and I suspect that people who have been with abusive/controlling partners will find this an especially harrowing read—and probably so will people who haven’t been in those kinds of relationships.

Beyond the interpersonal relationship creepiness, there is also a decent amount of body horror, as one might imagine when dealing with a sentient plant story. It reminds me of What Moves the Dead, which also deals with a plantlike thing invading a person. (Or perhaps The Last of Us’ cordyceps, though I haven’t seen that show, so I can’t be sure.) There’s one particularly striking scene where a character discovers that Baby has, through a pinprick to the skin, been able to cause a physical effect on the hands and face, and… eek. I discovered a new thing that I’m squeamish about during that scene. Baby is just the creepiest.

Anyway, because I don’t want to think about that scene anymore, I’ll bring up Jen. She’s Neve’s ex-girlfriend who serves as a bit of a surprise extra point-of-view. We discover her perspective on the situation through emails with her friend, and it was a clever and enlightening way to progress the plot, as well as to shed some light on Neve’s character. I liked the addition of her to the story, generally, though I did find myself wanting a little more out of the connections between characters, particularly Neve and Shell. I felt as if we didn’t get as many one-on-one scenes to develop their blooming (pun intended) romantic feelings; so much of the story was focused on Baby and his connection with them. Then again, maybe that’s the point. Baby is all-consuming because of his desires, and his insistence to make them known.

In the end, Eat the Ones You Love is a creepy yet compelling story. The audiobook features brilliant narration by Barry McStay and Lauren O’Leary. And while yes, this is a book about an evil plant, it’s mostly about desire, from gentle crushes on people to devastating possessiveness, and everything in between. The characters are pretty good, and the horror elements are excellent. I think the pacing wasn’t perfect (it felt as if it ended quite quickly), but overall this is a solid book. I’ll look for more works from Griffin in the future!

Eat the Ones You Love is available now!