2026 read #12: Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher.

Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher

261 pages

Published 2025

Read from February 25 to February 28

Rating: 3 out of 5

Knowing nothing about this book when I went in, I found myself making a lot of comparisons. Its plot of a young woman coming to a house in the desert, only to find an old god on the grounds, is uncannily similar to M. M. Olivas’ Sundown in San Ojuela. The precise depiction of a relatably autistic viewpoint recalls Johanna van Veen’s My Darling Dreadful Thing. The controlling, infantilizing ex Selena is fleeing from could be my own partner’s ex.

But in its slow, fundamentally mundane portrait of a woman coming to a small Southwestern town and learning her way around and making friends, Snake-Eater most reminds me of a book I haven’t thought of in more than a decade: Child of a Rainless Year by Jane Lindskold. I don’t remember much about Child—why on earth did I ever give it a full three stars?—but I feel confident in handing Snake-Eater the edge over it. Kingfisher’s protagonist is far more relatable, coming from an abusive past and precarious financial straits. The story is also more interesting, blessedly free of Child’s bourgeois comfort and insulation from consequences.

That does not make Snake-Eater more than a middling read. After an appealing introduction to main character Selena and her dog Copper, and an oddly absorbing account of how they establish themselves in Quartz Creek without meaning to, the narrative gets stuck for a while, as if unwilling to commit to making anything happen. Nearly identical banter repeats in different chapters. One gets the impression that Kingfisher really enjoyed certain secondary characters, and, perhaps, that the book didn’t get as thoroughly edited as one might wish.

In her acknowledgments, Kingfisher mentions how she started this book over a decade ago. It kind of shows. Snake-Eater is set a generation or two into a technological future, which is never made explicit aside from references to “arcologies,” and the existence of a wide-ranging commuter rail system. Cramming scattered sci-fi set-dressings into what is otherwise a contemporary fantasy just feels like something a young career author might do. (I might be speaking from personal experience.)

Still, I enjoyed Snake-Eater, especially the autistic and C-PTSD rep in its viewpoint character. I don’t know why Child of a Rainless Year got three stars from me, but I think this book, at least, deserves it.