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A review by hollielovesromance
Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Thank you Dreamscape for an Advanced Listener Copy of this audiobook! All opinions expressed are my own.
I want to start by saying the narrator of this audio was fantastic and kept me engaged in the story even when I wanted to tune out. The production quality was very nice as well.
This book was an extremely ambitious swing at big complex issues of religion, grief, bigotry, homophobia, love, and community. While I liked the idea behind it, I spent most of this book trying to figure out what was going to happen and how all of these random pieces fit together. It was a shorter book (220 pages per amazon info) and I just don’t think there was enough space to unpack all of this story. I found myself wanting there to be more focus on either Ghost or Malik and his husband which I felt like could have made the story more focused in the short page count it had. I’m not opposed to violence and gore being used on the page as it can serve a purpose but there were multiple scenes that I felt like were too heavy handed and were used as a crutch to express the horror of the situation. Combined with some of the tell and not show throughout the book I found that it overall fell short for me.
I want to start by saying the narrator of this audio was fantastic and kept me engaged in the story even when I wanted to tune out. The production quality was very nice as well.
This book was an extremely ambitious swing at big complex issues of religion, grief, bigotry, homophobia, love, and community. While I liked the idea behind it, I spent most of this book trying to figure out what was going to happen and how all of these random pieces fit together. It was a shorter book (220 pages per amazon info) and I just don’t think there was enough space to unpack all of this story. I found myself wanting there to be more focus on either Ghost or Malik and his husband which I felt like could have made the story more focused in the short page count it had. I’m not opposed to violence and gore being used on the page as it can serve a purpose but there were multiple scenes that I felt like were too heavy handed and were used as a crutch to express the horror of the situation. Combined with some of the tell and not show throughout the book I found that it overall fell short for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Rape, and Violence