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emmonsannae's review against another edition
This started as a normal badly written book and turned into something genuinely vile. I normally hate to leave even a bad book unfinished, but I felt a real urge to get this one physically far away from me. I need a shower for my brain.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Child death, Rape, and Excrement
kaiyakaiyo's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Tw// this book contains a pretty detailed rape and hate crime sequence, along with pervasive homophobia. a dash of internalized ableism (?) peruse at your own risk
For the first 170 pages I would have said this book, while very very very much not my cup of tea, was at least written okay. The last 30 or so pages completely wrecked that with the handwaviest retcon ending I think I’ve ever seen. I closed the book and made a sound I can only textually describe as ????????? any amount of mounting unknowable horror became completely absurd and ruined an already pretty wobbly narrative
I disliked reading this book a lot, and the ending was shit, but I can’t say it was bad per se… I just liked absolutely nothing about it personally
- the characters feel dropped into their own universe, and they make very little sense in the context of their town or each other. The neighborhood apparently hired homophobic hicks to beat the daylights out of a gay couple that moved in months ago in broad daylight, one of which is a cop, but the extremely flamboyant rich recluse just kites around town in a rolls royce? said gay couple is trying to adopt a child and “blend in” in HateCrime, USA for completely unexplained reasons? ghost … he just felt like an OC someone made and didn’t flesh out on tumblr? the fucking evil ferret thing?? what goes on. Very much short book syndrome, none of the characters or settings feel complete
- the “cosmic horror” fell pretty flat for me; there’s only so many times you read about a floating orb before it wears off. its power show at the end was frankly laughable, though i cheered @ the couple making it out alive! nothing about the rituals or kidnappings (weirdly blasé compared to the truly violent bits) spooked me even a little. the only horrifying parts of this book were the violent homophobic home invasion and graphic gang rape and stabbing. those are pretty real life horrors though, so this read didn’t really feel like I was reading a horror book, just a really awful Twitter thread about world events with a weird spiritual ad in the middle. I don’t mean to cheapen the deeply traumatic and trigger events here; they were heartbreaking to read. my point is that these were the only events in the book to evoke any sort of reaction from me, and that reaction was a pretty familiar mix of dread/sadness/nausea that comes with hearing about bad things happen to fellow queer people. not exactly the fun spine-tingler read I was after. I HAVE to start checking storygraph warnings before grabbing books that sound vaguely interesting
- the weird aside into the raging homophobic rapist and killer’s child molestation backstory… it added virtually nothing to the book. if we were going to get into “nuance” about why this town is full of vicious bigots, more pages should have been spent actually showing other townspeople. we met like 4. as it stands, it felt very random juxtaposed with the brutal stabbing that followed it. There’s some muddled point about trauma begetting trauma, but we just didn’t spend enough time on the moment for it to evoke any more thought than an SVU episode plot point compared to the other events of the novel. why include it at all ?
- the writing style… it moved quickly, that was nice, but frankly each sentence felt like it relished in the violence being conveyed. gross, almost greasy language, too many similes, major overuse of the words “monster” and “guilt”, overall not fun on the eyes to make up for the lackluster content. the pages were also distractingly ugly. why the background. why. is this a 2009 MS word book report?
Not a good read, and I should’ve guessed that by how much time was spent making the book itself pretty. do in fact judge overly stylized books by their cover!
maybe people more wigged by cosmic horror would like this? people who dig social violence horror (is that a thing?) idk. adding this author to my do not read list bc frankly nothing about this made me even slightly curious about other work. chop
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Homophobia, Rape, and Hate crime
Moderate: Grief, Ableism, and Kidnapping
thelovelydove's review against another edition
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
The writing is bad, I don't have another way to describe it. It is repetitive, the grammar is not good, and the word choices make me cringe. The author never lets you bond with the characters and I really didn't care about what happens to them.
The book is not scary and the only real horror is body horror. The author relies on violence for the sake of violence to create any feeling. There is a violent and horrible sexual assault that felt totally unnecessary. It felt very bury your gays.
I truly wish I had DNFed this or never picked it up in the first place. I would never recommend someone read this book.
The book is not scary and the only real horror is body horror. The author relies on violence for the sake of violence to create any feeling. There is a violent and horrible sexual assault that felt totally unnecessary. It felt very bury your gays.
I truly wish I had DNFed this or never picked it up in the first place. I would never recommend someone read this book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Physical abuse, Rape, Hate crime, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Sexual violence, and Torture
owlseyebooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.25
Most difficult to read SA I've ever seen.... I'm still trying to find words and get my mind right...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Sexual assault, Hate crime, Gore, Bullying, Excrement, Torture, Rape, and Sexual violence
cryface's review against another edition
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Rape, Sexual assault, and Homophobia
jerusha's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Rape, Violence, Excrement, Gore, and Homophobia
annathechaoticreader's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I am in absolute awe of this book. It has all of the things I love: literary prose, interesting characters, grief-filled religious themes, queerness, and horrifying & grotesque content. It's one of the most poignant horror novels I've read in a very long time and one that I will be thinking about for a long while. It is absolutely brilliant and I'm just so floored by it, absolutely recommend.
"For Ghost, his body was nothing more than a compost heap - a crude patchwork of abused anatomy that even the most impulsive surrealist wouldn't dare commemorate on canvas. Ghost knew well he was a monster, a horrible mutation handmade by grief." page 19
"For Ghost, his body was nothing more than a compost heap - a crude patchwork of abused anatomy that even the most impulsive surrealist wouldn't dare commemorate on canvas. Ghost knew well he was a monster, a horrible mutation handmade by grief." page 19
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Blood, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Grief, Hate crime, Death, Homophobia, Torture, Medical trauma, Murder, Body horror, Physical abuse, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, and Pedophilia
Minor: Ableism, Car accident, and Child death
blankie's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
I’m so sad this one didn’t work for me. I’m starting to think that You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood was a fluke and LaRocca isn’t the one for me but I *so* badly want to love them!!
Everything the Darkness Eats had the potential to be such a win for me on paper, but the writing coupled with how disjointed and rushed the plot and ending felt just made it impossible to take anything meaningful away from it. I will definitely keep picking their books up, I’m just not as optimistic as I once was about them.
Everything the Darkness Eats had the potential to be such a win for me on paper, but the writing coupled with how disjointed and rushed the plot and ending felt just made it impossible to take anything meaningful away from it. I will definitely keep picking their books up, I’m just not as optimistic as I once was about them.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Hate crime, Kidnapping, and Homophobia
barf_mobile's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Might've given this 3 stars if the narrator sounded less whiny.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Sexual harassment, Rape, and Hate crime
2busyreading's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Homophobia, Death, Grief, and Violence
Moderate: Torture and Rape