I loved the author's last book, the trees grew because I bled there, so I had to request an arc for this but I wish I didn't. I didn't like this. Described as cosmic horror, but it fell flat for me. I love horror books but this felt very lazy and relied on hitting every possible trigger warning to make people feel disturbed and uncomfortable rather than coming up with a good plot. Lots of the other reviews are very positive so I imagine some people would still enjoy it, but I couldn't get past the huge ableism

(CW for a pretty horrific way to speak about disabled people)

The main character called a disabled kid a "hideous incurable monster", broken, and said he wouldn't blame the mum for abandoning the kid due to "the unpleasantness of tending to a disabled child". Yikes. Potential context is that the mc also called himself a monster a lot and wanted to find a monster like him, but I don't think this makes it okay at all and was put off massively by this.

I just reviewed Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca. #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]
I LOVED THIS BOOK! It was spooky and amazing!

I enjoy LaRocca's books and the fact that they're not scared to touch on some taboo topics and themes. The overall concept of this novella is interesting. I enjoyed the horror mixed with the magical elements. The beginning reminded me of The Excorcist with the archeological dig foreshadowing horrors to come.

Disappointingly, the horrors are not that well executed and the writing made the book seem a lot longer than it needed to be. By the end of the second page, I was over all the metaphors and comparative phrases.

Aspects of the story also just seemed hard to believe. Not the magic or the horror, but small things that would not happen in everyday life. Like what happened with Piper and Ghost at the grocery store.

Overall, great concep, but the writing fell flat for me. Would love to see the same story written in a different way. Does not turn me off to LaRocca whatsoever, though, still gonna look out for new releases and books to binge.

This novella was the longest 200-page book I’d read yet. The novella is unlike the author’s other books, and not in a good way. Most of the book is nothing but metaphors. “He was like this, and she was like that, they were like..” so many filler sentences to overpaint a picture.
I found myself only finishing the book because it was an ARC, and I needed to review it. If this were a book I bought, I would have DNF’d it. The story doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. There are three main storylines/characters in the book that loosely tie together.

Did no one in the town notice an eccentric rich older man driving a villain car? Was the city so homophobic the cop abandoned all his duties to hunt homophobes? There was unnecessary SA in the book, which could have been avoided together.

I had high hopes for this novella and was disappointed with the finished product.

I’m a big fan of horror, especially queer horror, but I was not a fan of this book at all.

Let’s start with the good. I liked Ghost and Crowley’s chapters and their interactions. I also liked the ending. I enjoyed how Ghost, Crowley, and Malik's storylines connected and concluded, and I thought that Ghost's character development was well executed.

Malik’s chapters started out fine, but Chapter 11 turned me against the book entirely, and it only got worse from there. This chapter contains a very graphic hate crime; a gay man is beaten nearly to death and “excrement” is shoved in his mouth. This comes after he and his husband are tormented with homophobic slurs throughout the book. The graphic homophobic violence continues in Chapter 19. At this point, I was dreading Malik’s chapters because god knows what other graphic hate crimes would occur. However, Chapter 22 was worst of all; it included not just the kidnapping and torture of a gay man, but graphic rape too.

It is frustrating to read a story that markets itself as a queer horror novel only to find that two of the more prominent queer characters are used as emotional and physical punching bags for straight homophobes. I don’t expect horror to be a safe space exactly, violence is usually part of the genre — but I don’t enjoy seeing hate crimes (especially rape) written in such excessive and graphic, violent detail. When I think of queer horror, I don’t expect it to be a bunch of homophobes brutally torturing and raping innocent gay men in graphic detail.

Maybe this violence would be more palatable if there was some pay-off at the end, some revenge to make it all worthwhile, but the homophobic perpetrators got away scot-free. In fact, the homophobes were the only characters that weren't hurt or traumatized whatsoever.

There were also way too many mentions of people “soiling” themselves. Like, every other chapter. That is way too many.

4.5 stars

Out of the handful of LaRocca books I’ve read, this one has to be the my favorite.
Somehow LaRocca makes the gruesome, beautiful.
The themes in this book are dark and heavy, not for the light hearted.
There seemed to be 2 main stories, but even more little background stories that all come together in the end to make sense.
I liked that I could both love and feel contempt toward the characters. It makes them feel more dimensional and relatable.

This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.

This was such a fantastic read although one that you can't go into lightly. There were a couple times where I had to put the book down because what was happening to the characters was too much, especially as I identified similarly with the queer characters, their treatment made it a difficult read to get through sometimes. LaRocca has an incredible way of making the reader FEEL what is happening to their characters. This is not the first book of theirs that I read that gave me that reaction. I'm always excited to read what they come out with next. This was definitely an incredible harrowing read that I won't soon forget.

Everything the Darkness Eats is the long-awaited debut novel of Eric LaRocca, and I think that anyone who's a fan of LaRocca's novellas will really enjoy this. It's filled to the brim with beautiful yet grotesque imagery, harrowing and visceral situations, and unknowable cosmic horror. Darkness is eatin' good today.

The book does a great job of establishing a sense of atmosphere. Every page is drenched with dread, with the barest hint of hope shining through, until it's then consumed by darkness. LaRocca's writing is maybe a little too reliant on simile and metaphor, but it does establish a good tone that permeates the novel. That tone helps to settle you into each character's mindset, which is not the most positive place to be, considering what's happened to them in the past and what's currently transpiring in Henley's Edge.

There are some really disturbing scenes in this book regarding homophobia and sexual assault, where LaRocca keeps you squarely in the perspective of the victim. These moments are probably the most effective parts of the book in evoking pure horror, and they aren't even due to the cosmic happenings in the town. Just the savagery of other people.

If there's something I would criticize the book for, it's that it does kind of feel like LaRocca is still in novella mode. What I mean by that is that first off, it's a pretty short novel--only about 200 pages. And because of that, I felt there were a lot of elements that could have been fleshed out more to increase my enjoyment. I found all the characters to be interesting, and I was invested in each of their journeys, but I was definitely left wanting to know them more. I wanted to see them in their day-to-day lives, I wanted to know more about who they are as people beyond their traumas, so that the more horrifying and gut-wrenching scenes would land better after caring more about them. As it stands, we really only know about the worst parts of their past and how they're mentally dealing with the immediate present, which definitely helps to create that dour atmosphere LaRocca is going for.

On that same note, I would've liked more exploration of the antagonist's backstory and motives, as well as more of what was actually going on in Henley's Edge. This book is definitely cosmic horror, and I understand the whole point of that is not exactly understanding why or how things are happening--and it's less that I want to know literal details and mechanics of the happenings, and more that I just want to see more of the weirdness that's going on. To keep spoilers light, I'll only say that we eventually find out what has happened to the town's missing people, and rather than simply learning that I would've enjoyed reading scenes of them actually coming to that moment earlier in the book. Additionally, I was left not really knowing what the antagonist was trying to accomplish (beyond a minimal understanding, anyway) or why, even though I thought the climax was interesting.

Overall, it was an immensely readable book--I read it in two sittings, one of which was reading the entire last 160 pages--and fans of LaRocca will find a lot to chew on here. I've enjoyed following LaRocca's work up to this point, and I'm excited to see what comes next.

Another excellent novella from Eric LaRocca, quickly becoming a mainstay in LGBTQ+ horror today. Tender and visceral, EVERYTHING THE DARKNESS EATS is a worthy addition to LaRocca's bookshelf!

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca is a dark, dark tale. But it does have a hopeful light within it. I really do wish it had come with some content warnings at the beginning though. I know CWs are a debated topic, but this book could have benefitted from some.

Eric LaRocca has done it again! Queer horror at its finest. LaRocca does a great job at creating an atmosphere of dread and suspension like no other!

TW: Murder, animal death, homophobia, death of spouse, hate crimes, kidnapping, HIV

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:After a recent string of disappearances in a small Connecticut town, a grieving widower with a grim secret is drawn into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by a powerful and mysterious older gentleman named Heart Crowley. Meanwhile, a member of local law enforcement tasked with uncovering the culprit responsible for the bizarre disappearances soon begins to learn of a current of unbridled hatred simmering beneath the guise of the town’s idyllic community—a hatred that will eventually burst and forever change the lives of those who once found peace in the quiet town of Henley’s Edge.
Release Date: June 6th, 2023
Genre: Thriller/horror
Pages: 157
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. The story reminded me of Needful Things meets Something Wicked This Way Comes

What I Didn't Like:
1. Characters always do repetitive things
2. This writing is trying TOO hard to be something
3. So boring

Overall Thoughts:
How do you know a man wrote this that doesn't have kids? The nurse calls Pipers name and the little girl goes off with the nurse to the back. I've never known anyone to let their little kid go alone to the back. Also it's weird they are even there just to get Pipers height and weight. Why? Also we learn that Piper is blind so how does she just run off by herself and not run into something? Also Gemma smiling at her daughter to go along with Ghost talking to her is confusing. How would she see her mother's smile?

I just always get this feeling when I read the authors books that he is trying too hard to write overly intelligent.

What is with these people putting their finger between their teeth??

In a town where it feels like there are at least some gay people living in it, it feels out of place that Brett and Malik would have a brick thrown through their window. It also seems pretty ballsy to throw a brick throw a cops window.

I was bored with this book. Nothing happens. Paragraphs are just peppered with these fillers - senseless words. A lot of things the author writes makes zero sense in context.
Whether his companion was male or female, he was and always would be invisible—invisible to the women he adored because he sometimes preferred men, and indistinguishable to the men he cherished because he was known to adore women.
What??? There are so many sentences that are like this. It's boring and overdone to the point where I had to skim on some pages. Comparisons felt like they had no point to them. You feel like you're watching some kind of artsy movie that has no meaning. You could just read only the dialogue, ignore the mindless ramblings, and still know what's going on.

One of the things that drives me most upset about this author is how every paragraph describes something with "He/she/it/I/we/they were like...." Every page the author uses the word "like" in at least almost every paragraph. It becomes annoying. Some examples from the same page;
"Dripping wet like the bodies of drowned woodland sprites."
2 paragraphs down
"Brett curled on the floor like a child's doll discarded in a rainstorm, blood leeching across the carpet like a shadow."

Not sure how this thing town doesn't notice this old dude driving around in his big black car and picking up people - people that end up missing.

Ghost kidnapping Piper is insane to me! So the uncle left his blind neice standing in an aisle by herself. Ghost then kidnaps her and takes her back to the house. Afterwards he returns back to the grocery that's surrounded by police and NO ONE questions anything? They didn't watch cameras to see where she went? The police didn't notice a blind little girl matching the missing girl get out of a taxi. The taxi driver didn't think any of this was weird???

Honestly this book wasn't good. It was so so boring. The ending is predictable. Actually this whole book is predictable. I read 157 pages and it feels as though nothing happens.

Final Thoughts:
I feel like the authors books are getting worse and worse. Somehow he managed to make a novella feel so long. There are plot holes in this book that make no sense. I didn't understand the whole point of telling Malik's perspective when it is just barely tied into the main story. It was so boring reading about them.

I would not say this is a horror novel. Maybe more of a magical realism thing but if there was horror then I missed it.

Recommend For:
• Novella's
• Queer love
• Magical moments

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Interesting story, characters and ideas. The 2 main characters ate both interesting to read about and they both deal with grief in interesting ways, the little spirit is a interesting story element. Ther was a moment where I was losing interest but the book knew how to immediately grab it again.

I wanted to like this book but I could not get into the story and found the plot to be hard to follow. The characters were also a bit dull for me.