horror_trash432 's review for:

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

3.5

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Middle of the road. It starts fairly slow, then rushes through the last quarter. The Ghost on the shoulder is a cute concept.

but I am not sure if the whole God/Crowley trope worked. There really wasn’t a satisfying explanation of the God just being in some mine part, Crowley being evil part was too obvious because of the name. Maybe would have been better if he had a different name or anagram. Malik getting beat up was very graphic and upsetting - but also just felt like a stupid mistake for an investigator. Not a fan of the amount of human excrement mentioned/used as a point in the story either - just feels like over the top gross to make up for less effective horror tactics used in the story.

The ending ends happy but like, didn’t seem connected or cohesive based on other plot points. The two main characters did not intersection as much as they could to show a cohesive theme.

For instance, there was intersections of homophobia for both main characters, but Ghosts seemed a lot more nominal due to being Bi. You can 100% write more interesting themes of internal conflict/homophobic conflict other than “what if no one accepts me liking men, so I won’t tell anyone”. Also I feel like the abuse Malik took could have been less graphic and literal to display homophobia. Also that part of the story has no supernatural themes, to tie it to the other.