Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

22 reviews

angreadseverything's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Torture, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Excrement, and Biphobia

mfrisk's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

This book is hard to describe. It is told in multiple perspectives and is surreal and supernatural and an incredibly slow burn. I don’t know if I fully understand how everything came together or didn’t in the end but I did still think this was an interesting read. I feel like we needed a bit more for this to feel fully resolved and definitely would warn everyone to check trigger warnings as this is not an easy read. This is a tough book to wrap my head around for sure.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Blood, Body horror, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault

Minor: Suicide

aparker89's review

dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A fast-paced supernatural mystery that will leave you begging for mercy. Not only will you feel sorrow, you can feel the slash of the knife. While you witness some truly horrific events in this story, most are not so far fetched as to be unbelievable. You feel for every person you meet and the evil lurking is both ethereal and too real! With any luck, you might finish unscathed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Torture, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, Hate crime, and Grief

Moderate: Car accident, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Excrement, Homophobia, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Islamophobia, and Blood

Minor: Body shaming, Biphobia, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, Panic attacks/disorders, and Confinement

mortiffa's review

Normally I thoroughly enjoy this author's work, but this one is just too hard to get through.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Torture, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

riflelizards's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Hate crime, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Blood, Car accident, and Excrement

Minor: Child death, Death, Biphobia, and Medical content

emilycarvelli's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Excrement, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Sexual assault, Torture, Sexual harassment, Violence, Gore, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual violence

allena_inwonderland's review

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

What I liked: descriptive writing style, that kept me going. The immediate attention to detail.
Short and quick chapters 
The beginning 
Prologue was actually one of my favorite parts and I wanted more!

What I didn’t like:
Unnecessary gang rape 
Malik not knowing how to defend himself & forgetting 
That epilogue?!
I didn’t like how some story lines weren’t flowing like it felt like fluff 

So-so:
Religious aspects 
- I have my own problems w religion but it was interesting for me to read something so interwoven with biblical aspects from someone (LaRocca) not being of faith and I get it is for his mom 
Is that why we got that epilogue 👀
- The synchronicity‘s with biblical stories
Specifically I felt this brought attention to the anti christ & how in the Bible it talks about them deceiving people to gather a following and that’s exactly what I was seeing portrayed. 

Also Ghost and Mr. Crowley differences and relationship. 
Book shows a good portrayal of grief.

Lots of thoughts but don’t want to spoil the story!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Car accident, Blood, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual violence, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Mental illness, Kidnapping, and Death

Moderate: Suicide

j_m_boyer's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Another phenomenal work by LaRocca! I don’t have the right words to express how much this novel resonated with me and how well written and stylized it. This is one of their more emotionally charged works, layered with depth- full of dread instead of  the literary equivalent of jump-scares.  Although given his other works I did anticipate a little more body horror than there was. 

It’s deliciously dark, at times bleak and grotesque in all the best ways. For anyone who has a complicated relationship with religion, or grew up contemplating their place in a world that does not want them- this book is for you. I wish it had about 50 more pages to really expand and give the final act some more time to play out. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Physical abuse, and Homophobia

rhiannonafternoon's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Do not underestimate the impact of the horror this book can impart based on its size. A collection of people all falling under the spell of a mysterious man in small town CT, with a side story of horrible homophobia and related crimes. Surprisingly a happy ending, but wow is there a lot to unpack here. I really loved it, you just have to experience it yourself.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Violence, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Grief, Death, Homophobia, Blood, Suicidal thoughts, Car accident, Rape, Physical abuse, Excrement, Sexual assault, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use

dean_reviews's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Oh gosh, what do I even say about Everything the Darkness Eats?

It was an amazing book, but also such a hard and emotional read.
I don't think that I was fully prepared for what I was getting myself into when I started this book. I am still glad that I did read it though.

***Content warnings for this book:

Death, Injury/Injury Detail, Homophobia (including slurs), Graphic Rape, Graphic Sexual Assault, Graphic Abuse, Gore, Murder, Blood, Ritual Sacrifice, Ableism, Home Invasion, Terminal Illness, AIDS, Islamophobia, Grief, Death of a loved one, Death of an infant, Biphobia/Bierasure***

This story is told to us in a narrative form that follows multiple people who are effected by the events happening in the small Connecticut town of Henley's Edge. Our cast of characters is varied and diverse. A group of people who would be impacted by the internal workings of a small town in profound ways that intersect but are also unique and troubling.

I feel like a lot of this story is me going "yup... that tracks" when something happens that does feel into my pre-conceived notions of how a small town would engage with and deal with the particular issues at hand.
I know this is unfair in a lot of ways and it did make me stop and wonder if LaRocca was writing from personal experience, general stereotypical knowledge, or held beliefs?

I did find myself needing breaks from the contents of the books. Don't get me wrong, I am no stranger to a dark and traumatizing book, but something about this one just hit so differently... I am wondering if it was feeding off of my own concerns over treatment I might receive as a trans person in those places.
Harnessing real fears and concerns of those within the communities of the characters to make the struggles and pain feel more real.
I also wonder.... if maybe this would have been less needed had I been reading with my eyes and not my ears.

On that note.. the audio was really good. I loved the flow and tone that Andre Santana brought to the story. The depth that was given to the hard moments and the emotion that was brought into the characters.

Overall, I am happy that I read this book and I am curious to pick up more of their books in the future. I would recommend this book so long as I also gave them the laundry list of trigger warnings.

Literally my only major critique is that there is not a connected list of trigger warnings provided by the author/publisher on the listings.

***I was provided a copy of this book via NetGalley. This review is my honest opinion and thoughts about what I read.***

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Blood, Medical trauma, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Murder, and Torture

Moderate: Excrement, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Terminal illness, Biphobia, Child death, and Vomit