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A review by coralinejones
All That Consumes Us by Erica Waters
3.0
Okay this was... cute. I have more cons than pros, so I suppose I'll start with what worked for me:
The last quarter of the book was the most interesting and the least obnoxious. When Tara, our main character, began understanding what was going on with her, and the mystery started to reveal itself to us, it really kicked off and was fun to see where the book ended up. The "twist" was amusing; I think overall this would work better as a family horror movie or a mini series on Netflix or something.
What I disliked was quite literally everything else. Tara was beyond annoying. I feel like the "but this is YA!" excuse doesn't work here because these are college aged students. Tara being self-deprecating is understandable, albeit one of the worst aspects of the novel, but I would argue that a girl with as much trauma as Tara would learn to mature quickly. She was able to graduate early and damn near took care of herself and her mother her entire life. She lives on her own! Tara acting like a six year old just didn't feel realistic to me, but hey, not my novel.
All That Consumes Us is also really cliche. Someone on Goodreads had mentioned it felt like the author wrote this for an audience of Tumblr users and TikTok readers and, honestly, that rings true to me as well. It was just a tad corny and already outdated with the social media references. This is considered a gothic tale but none of those elements came together for me.
In my opinion this novel reads as "Baby's first dark academia book". Corny, cliche, juvenile despite the setting. House of Anubis meets The Secret History (Disney edition) meets Big Hero 6 meets Inside Out.
Was fun! Just nothing special, really.
The last quarter of the book was the most interesting and the least obnoxious. When Tara, our main character, began understanding what was going on with her, and the mystery started to reveal itself to us, it really kicked off and was fun to see where the book ended up. The "twist" was amusing; I think overall this would work better as a family horror movie or a mini series on Netflix or something.
What I disliked was quite literally everything else. Tara was beyond annoying. I feel like the "but this is YA!" excuse doesn't work here because these are college aged students. Tara being self-deprecating is understandable, albeit one of the worst aspects of the novel, but I would argue that a girl with as much trauma as Tara would learn to mature quickly. She was able to graduate early and damn near took care of herself and her mother her entire life. She lives on her own! Tara acting like a six year old just didn't feel realistic to me, but hey, not my novel.
All That Consumes Us is also really cliche. Someone on Goodreads had mentioned it felt like the author wrote this for an audience of Tumblr users and TikTok readers and, honestly, that rings true to me as well. It was just a tad corny and already outdated with the social media references. This is considered a gothic tale but none of those elements came together for me.
In my opinion this novel reads as "Baby's first dark academia book". Corny, cliche, juvenile despite the setting. House of Anubis meets The Secret History (Disney edition) meets Big Hero 6 meets Inside Out.
Was fun! Just nothing special, really.