Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Everything the Darkness Eats

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

25 reviews

nightoscphere's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad 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

0.25

............ okay so, i get the low ratings!

ok so after my research, i heard the author was pretty disappointed with how ppl reacted to the book. and my response to that? why are u surprised?? [boss and ceo voice] dont act shocked!

im sorry but u cant put on the ryan murphy wig and be shocked when u r treated like ryan murphy! reading this book was giving me flashbacks to seeing my sister & mom watch ahs: asylum in the way that i witnessed a queer writer tortue their queer character bc of their queerness. except that character actually had a three dimensional personality and was vital to the plot. malik and his husband? are Not!

i get that (as ive gleamed from ppl who enjoyed the book/the writer) the violence isnt an endorsement, that it's kind of like a takedown of "what doesnt kill you makes a stronger" bc what doesnt kill you just.... irrevocably scars u physically and mentally for life. u arent stronger for living through the worst shit imaginable, ur just a person who now has to figure out how to keep on living. or maybe it's more about the place of god and humanity — how it's fellow humans who are the arbiters of good and evil, of devils and angels, of who gets deliverance and who gets cast to hell. but that all falls apart to me when it comes to the characterization of malik.

ive seen some ppl comment on how real the characters are, how complex both leads are allowed to be — but i object on the account of malik. i get why ghost is the way he is, i even get heart though we never read his pov, but malik? a muslim, queer, small town cop? is reduced to these factors and not even in any sort of interesting way.

i assume that malik is a person of colour, but that's solely bc of his name and background. bc race is not mentioned directly or inadvertently *at all* in this gook. and im not expecting a white author to unpack the nuances of racism, but to ham over the head how disability, faith, and queerness colour these leads lives.... but race is just? a nonfactor? to have a muslim character with a name like naseem malik that acknowledges his queerness, acknowledges his upbringing, (kind of) acknowledges his relationship to islam, but not race? ESPECIALLY in a small town? as a COP!!? in BIG TWENTY TWENTY THREE?!? like... even if he IS white, would he not have some sort of story about the preconceived notions his name holds?!? like?!? NOT EVEN ONCE?!!! im sorry but I CALL BULLSHIT'

it would be one thing if malik and his husband had gone through these horrors and we had been let into their interiority... but we dont. ghost is given so much. even HEART is given a layered backstory. but what do we know about malik beyond his identity? his parents died young? he was raised by his loving grandparents? hes... angry? okay... what else?

i can say heart had his suits, his way with words, his musings on creator vs creation. ghost had tangible grief, had a spiritual embodiment of his worst thoughts, had an unwanted solitude that coloured his every move. but malik? was just a gay, muslim, cop, who was a victim of the absolute worse of bigotry. and so was his husband. and then they just.... get a magic memory wipe from GOD (YES ACTUAL GOD) and live happily ever after?!?!

which yes, was granted SOLELY bc GHOST asked for it but. that's it. thats all. malik doesnt have a role in the mysterious disappearances, or connects with any of the named characters or has anything to do at all with the magic of the story beyond being a worthy but random benefactor of a miracle! which may have been the point but it's a stupid point!

i tried this out bc i like certain cosmic horror stories (im a nope (2022) and archive81 audio drama supremacist after all), but not in this fashion. especially not when meaningless violence is at the heart of it. even if the meaning in the meaningless violence is that this shit IS meaningless/overkill, that simply bores me. anyone can torture some gays!! but a the very LEAST explore the interiority of ALL your leads, ESPECIALLY your (assumed) leads of colour! dont reduce them to plot devices and get shocked when ppl r mad they're reduced to plot devices! esp when treated so violently like.... ur gonna have haters! embrace the girls n gays who got it and if u want a wider readership, then learn from the girls n gays who didnt!

bc again..... ur a muslim cop in a small city and that niche experience doesnt come up in his thoughts ONCE?!?! or, they bring up malik not wanting to be a father — okay then DEVELOP THAT HELLO?!? it wouldve been an interesting link with heart's whole creator/creation obsession!! and malik + his husband werent able to be useful in this plot beyond being saved by god?!? like they couldnt have been like... idk... really into solving the mystery? being like "no one cares to solve our case so the least we can do is solve theirs??" like im fine with never understanding god or what tf the wraith is/why its there or how heart even got his power — but to give malik so little?!?!? despite being the second pov?!? just sickens me like...... yeah okay whatever! whatever! im moving on!!

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quinnxing's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.0

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finnthehuman217's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

3.0

I don’t like the way queer trauma is treated as the horror story here. It’s not like we actually have lives besides being the victims of hate crimes. I found that the characters were lovable but the gratuitous violence was too much for me. Just as an aside? I love André Santana’s voice! He narrated the Bury your gays book.

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emlen's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark 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? Yes

4.0

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caro_mac's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

2.75

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sjbryson's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A

2.5

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whatwasmissing's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? No

was not expecting this to run the full gamut of content warnings but there you go.

i quite liked the slow build of the mystery in the first half, particularly the missing townsfolk and the charming devil.
the last 30% or so was so incredibly graphic that it was hard to get through. the resolution after that did feel pretty rushed.

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librarymouse's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book didn't make much sense. So much of it was left unexplained and there was a lot of deeply confused religious piety paired with the desire to kill God. Poor execution in the storytelling conflated queerness and disability with monstrosity. At least I'm hoping it's poor execution of content and not intentional. Giving the bad guy AIDS was ... a choice.

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emmonsannae's review against another edition

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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.

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annathechaoticreader's review against another edition

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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

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