A dark fantasy/horror/academia novel - so right up my alley! Tara is floundering at Corbin College - both academically and financially. But then a member of the elusive Magni Viri is tragically found dead and suddenly Tara is given her spot. Once there, her financial woes are gone and she is starting to do well in her classes and in her writing. But there is something off about Magni Viri, something off about the writing that she does at all hours of the night. Will Tara discover Magni Viri’s secrets before it’s too late?

Hard to put down - quite the gripping read! I liked all of the characters and the descriptions of Corbin College and its environs were spot on gothic. Tara (despite being my namesake) was harder to get into in the first half of the book though.

Unfortunately, I wanted this to be much darker than it was and while I was intrigued by the beginning of the novel it definitely ended up disappointing me by the end. An average read that I'll probably forget but a good recommendation if you have a younger reader or someone who's just dipping their toes into horror and are nervous about the genre.

While this book took me a little bit to get into, it has some absolutely stunning gothic and dark academia vibes, as well as mystery curling throughout the story like smoke. Erica Waters uses her trademark southern gothic horror to create an eerie collegiate atmosphere and a secret society that’s even more sinister than it originally seems. In some ways, it felt like Lee Mandelo’s novel, SUMMER SONS, though ALL THAT CONSUMES definitely has more of an academic vibe. I’m not sure what exactly it was that didn’t click for me, although I think I wish some elements of the mystery were worked into the overall flow of the story better. And while I didn’t dislike the romance, I wasn’t just head over heels either. For me, the best parts of this book are the vibes, and also all the relationships that our main character, Tara, creates throughout. If you’re looking for something to fit a cloudy day or sinister creativity, this is definitely one to pick up!

When the book begins, Tara seems very intent on going it alone because she’s had to go it alone basically her entire life. Getting into the secret society, Magni Viri is a chance to have a community, but that community doesn’t end up being what she thinks. But the people that Tara learns to lean on, and who can lean on her in return, were what made this book so much more enjoyable in the second half than in the first. I also love the vibes of the novella that Tara is writing, even if it ends up being a lot darker, for several reasons, than she might have originally thought. Again, if it seems like your vibe, it’s worth checking out.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this novel. I was allowed to read for free from NetGalley and give this review of my own opinion with no persuasion. #NetGalley #AllThatConsumesUs

Queer? Check. Gothic? Check. Dark academia? Check. Erica Waters brought all of my favorite things to the table and I ate it up.

I was interested in this book because I had read and enjoyed The River Has Teeth. Going into this, I had high hopes, and hoo boy, it did not disappoint. Waters is VERY good at creating an eerie and unsettling atmosphere. The mystery that was built throughout this book was intriguing and kept me captivated until the very last page. Overall the plot and setting in this book were very strong.

I mention in almost every review that I am a huge character reader. My favorite part of any book tends to be the characters, and that is still true for this one. I absolutely loved the found family aspect of this book. However, the romance was not the strongest. If you are wanting to read a romance, this is not the one for you. It's not that the romance is weak. It's just that the romance is not the focus of this book. But it's always important to know what you're getting into.

Overall, definitely give this one a read!

Tara feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere, so when she’s given a newly-opened spot into her college’s elite group of students, she jumps at the chance for success and built-in friendships. But what started as too good to be true proves that it really is just that.

Erica Waters weaves a darkly poignant tale about elitism and ghosts, and I really enjoyed it. Tara was a relatable narrator, and her descent into the wild world of Magni Viri was exciting and a little bit terrifying. The representation was great and the found family trope was probably my favorite part.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced ebook edition of this title. Opinions are my own.

https://lesbrary.com/all-that-consumes-us-by-erica-waters/

The days have started getting shorter as darkness takes up more and more space every day. The evening air isn’t quite cold enough to keep you inside, but every gust of wind chills to the bone, and the woods behind my apartment are filled with piles of dead foliage sprouting mushrooms. There’s just something about fall that keeps my attention set on horror all season long. It was in that spirit that I picked up All That Consumes Us in October, a book which bills itself as a “gothic dark academia novel.” That alone was enough to get me interested, but by the time I was done, Erica Waters’s latest work easily made the list of my favorite reads this whole year.

It’s safe to say Tara Boone is not having the best time with her freshman year at Corbin College. She longs to be a writer, but she’s stuck working two jobs to pay tuition and taking the education track so that she has even the slightest hope of having a career to pay her student loans with. When she gets a chance to enroll in Magna Viri—an elite, somewhat secretive honor society that only accepts a few students every year and promises free tuition, great jobs, and connections after graduation—she jumps at the chance, even if that chance comes as a direct result of the untimely death of one of Magna Viri’s freshman students.

Magna Viri isn’t quite the godsend it seems, however. Some of the older students seem sick, almost hollowed out, and even her fellow freshmen are beginning to show signs of wear. Tara at first chalks it up to how overbearing and aggressive the group’s advisor is, but it rapidly becomes clear that something far worse is going on as she begins writing in her sleep. She wakes up at her desk again and again with words that aren’t hers scrawled on paper in front of her, a story far darker and more violent than anything she’s ever written before.

Tara is one of the most painfully relatable characters I’ve read in a long time, from the overwhelming impostor syndrome to the constant comparing herself to the more elite students to the feeling like if only she wasn’t being held down by her lack of opportunity maybe, just maybe she could be as good as them. Tara’s every thought and feeling is achingly real because they’re so familiar, in a way that I think just about every working class creative has felt at some point or another.

The supporting cast is also incredibly diverse. Tara’s classmates come from a range of backgrounds and ethnicities. Most of them are queer, her roommate is nonbinary, and the romantic interest has a chronic illness. That diversity isn’t just for show, either; each character’s interaction with the secrets at the core of Magna Viri is fundamentally shaped by their identity. I found all of them to be as well-crafted and memorable as Tara herself. Even as the story becomes more and more supernatural, the characters keep it grounded in a way that makes every punch hit that much harder.

I’m going to put a spoiler warning for below the break here, as well as the content warnings for All That Consumes Us, because I can’t fully describe why I loved this book without revealing a big part of the mystery. If what I’ve said so far intrigues you, I strongly encourage you to go read this book, and then come back for the rest after.

Content warnings: gaslighting, loss of bodily autonomy, possession, underage drinking and alcoholism, emotional abuse and manipulation, and brief scenes including violence, transphobia and misgendering, and hospitals

(SPOILERS BELOW)

The best thing about horror, to me, has always been the metaphor. Good horror, to my mind, isn’t just about sending chills up your spine or giving you that adrenaline rush of fear, it’s about using the safety of fiction to explore the things that frighten us. That includes the obviously terrifying things, like the thought of having your body literally controlled by someone else, but it also includes the awful things that have become so ordinary that we ignore them entirely or even just accept them as part of life, using those obvious things to blow them up to the point where the inherent wrongness of them becomes apparent.

All That Consumes Us has plenty of the former, but it is packed to bursting with the latter. For those of you who read this far without reading the book first, signing up with Magna Viri is signing up to be possessed by the ghost of a former member, someone who’s genius they considered so great that it could not be allowed to disappear just because they died. You create that person’s work for your four years at college, and in exchange you get to put your name on it. It started out with the best of intentions, as a partnership, but overtime became corrupted, and now the students of Magna Viri are being drained utterly dry for the sake of their ghosts.

The ghosts of Magna Viri work incredibly well as a scathing metaphor for so much of what plagues academic and creative work. They are the toxic productivity that demands that we expend ourselves physically or else be considered worthless. They are the commoditization of creation and the treatment of creators as tools that enrich the elite. They are the idea that there are only a few truly great works and everything else is simply derivative. They are the colonization of young, diverse minds, forcing them to focus on mainly the works of dead white men in order to be considered educated, and to mimic them in order to be considered skilled.

All That Consumes Us forces you to reckon with the cruel realities of academia and creation that we all too often take for granted, and it does so in a package that is diverse, suspenseful, compelling, and deeply unsettling. Currently, it’s sitting at the top of my list this year, and I think it’s going to be difficult to dethrone. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

3.75 stars

Thank you netgalley for providing this arc.

For the first third of this book, I didn’t think I was going to like it. As soon as Penny was confirmed to be a love interest though, everything changed. I loved Penny. Her disability representation was extremely well done and I love how flares were mentioned. As well as in one scene where they told her not to remove her shoes because she’s on immunosuppressants and could get an infection if she got cut. Like sometimes authors forget a character has things like that and their disability is just mentioned sometimes like “oh she has some pain in her knee rn” or something, but that was a great detail. I liked Wren as well. I found it interesting how all of them were so manipulated by their ghosts, Wren especially. I do have to say, I thought it was stupid that she thought she could get rid of her by just dumping her bones somewhere else? Girl😭come one now we are not this naive. Anyways, I ended up really enjoying it, mostly because of the disability rep. It’s rare that someone gets it right, and this book did. And the added sapphic ship was awesome ofc.

I received this book for free for an honest unbiased review from Netgalley.

I wish more books were this well written. Characters were witty and the setting fantastic.

Special thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was really good. The beginning was amazing, I just wish that the pacing was more consistent (I found myself getting bored at times in the middle of the book).

This book is a solid dark academia story. Secret society at college, blood oaths, possession for the sake of art and advancement. This book was fast paced, somewhat atmospheric but mostly plot/character development focused. Our main character Tara is a bit insufferable, but it’s part of her charm? I know teens will enjoy this story, find the characters relatable and the things they do realistic,

All That Consumes us is a spooky, dark read that hit just what I was hoping for. The out-of-place-at-her-bougie-college main character gave definitely Ninth House vibes which I’m always a fan of. But the plot also felt original, and I enjoyed the story and overall dark vibes.

All That Consumes Us gave me all the dark academia, gothic feels and it was a good read for the fall season. The story revolves around Tara (great name by the way!) who attends a prestigious college where she studies creative writing. Tara is lured into the college’s mysterious academic society of gifted students, but she soon learns that nothing is as it seems.

I was excited to read this book because the synopsis sounded interesting and I loved the cover. This is the first book I’ve read by Erica Waters and I really enjoyed her writing. I loved the creepy atmosphere and gothic vibes in this book. This story has murder, mystery, romance, and paranormal elements. I definitely recommend this book to fans of dark academia.

3.5/5 stars

I love Erica Waters' writing. Her stories are always clever and creepy. This one did not disappoint. I loved the premise, and the spooky mystery.

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄
🧾 Dark academia
💖 Sapphic romance
👻 Ghosts
🙌 Diverse characters
🦇 Gothic horror
🗝 Secret societies

- 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓'𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓
This was so good?????

Tara is in college, working multiple jobs, and barely making it. She dreams of being a writer and joining an elite society at her college, Magni Viri, but was rejected when she applied. After a member of the society suddenly dies, Tara is given the opportunity of a lifetime and is invited to join. Everyone knows how secretive Magni Viri is, and some even think it’s a satanic cult, but nobody actually knows what is going on behind closed doors.

All That Consumes Us is a beautiful story full of diverse characters, autoimmune disorder representation, ghosts, gay longing, and gothic vibes.

- 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒
I absolutely loved this book and would read a sequel if there was one. It does touch on some heavy topics, so read the content warnings beforehand. Overall, I gave this a 4.25/5⭐.

4.25/5
Devoured (or should I say consumed) this excellent book in a day! It's the type that once you get sucked in, you won't want to put it down until you're done. Perfect for fans of dark academia and paranormal mysteries.

Tara is struggling to juggle college and finances when she gets her dream offer to join a prestigious academic society. But is it too good to be true?

While I wouldn't say it's on par with The Secret History (which is mentioned a weird amount of times) or Babel, this is still an interesting critique of academia and the lengths we will go to leave a lasting impact.

All That Consumes Us is a gothic, dark academia novel with nightmares, secret societies, and malevolent spirits!

I always love gothic novels AND dark academia novels, so this book was right up my alley! The atmosphere was intriguing, the mysterious aspects of the book kept me guessing (though I am happy to say I figured it out!), and I absolutely loved the academic discussions that took place in the novel!

But I did have some complaints as well. For one, it was too long. It could’ve been 50-100 pages shorter. I don’t think that there were a lot of unnecessary scenes, but I do think that the author is too descriptive. A lot of scenes could’ve been shorter. Being over-descriptive made the book drag at times. Another complaint of mine is that the main character kept saying certain things like they were a revelation, but they were quite obvious to the reader. I found myself saying “duhh” to her a lot😬 And my last complaint is that I wish that the main character’s dark thoughts had been explored beyond a certain point. In the beginning of the book, there was a lot of emphasis placed on dark and jealous thoughts had by the main character, but the dark depths of her personality weren’t explored as much as I think they could’ve been.

But overall, I did enjoy this book and it is a great read for anyone who, like me, loves dark academia and gothic vibes!

I received a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you HarperTeen and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.

Trigger Warning: parental abandonment

Tara’s adventure at Corbin College should be on everyone’s TBR this fall! Get ready for queer gothic spooks set in the Appalachian Mountains. This dark academia novel follows Tara’s freshman year of college. When the elite organization of Magni Viri loses a member, Tara is offered the dead girl’s place and her scholarship. An offer impossible to refuse, Tara starts living the life that Meredith used to have. But is Meredith really gone? With time to finally write and become the author she’s always dreamed of; Tara wakes up to work she can’t remember scribbling down.

Erica Waters’ prose will suck you in, her setting will charm you, and her atmosphere will captivate you. If you’re looking for the lines of reality to blur in an old Victorian dormitory, I’d highly recommend this new YA horror book.

We still have two months left in the year, but I think this might be my favorite book of 2023! All That Consumes us has got it all: old Appalachian college grounds, an MC who dreams of being an author, a secretive academic society that parties in a cemetery, possession by ghosts, and queer characters galore. What more could a reader want?

All that Consumes Us is a young adult, fantasy, horror, that packs in the paranormal with the unsure, loner college student vibe. Tara is a 1st gen college student who is an aspriing writer, but her collge dreams are being crushed by her loan and payment responsibilities. She works multiple jobs to get by and she is barely hanging on. It was her hope to be selected as one of the 6 students inducted to Magni Viri, an elite acaedmic society that covers all college expenses and is it's own internal friend group.

Tara isn't initially let into Magni Viri but a freak accident has now pushed her in, but it is too good to be true and there are secrets and weird things happening to her.

Tara was a great representation of a 1st year college student trying to get through her new life and support herself. There is a lot of self doubt and loathing of her time and effort, and it all comes to a head when she is chosen for the academic group. This is her answer to everything. She is a bit stubborn but is willing to overlook the quirkiness to progress her abilty while in college - I don't blame her.

The book does a great job setting the tone and the horror elements. It is not too scary but enough so give shivers. The overall theme was super interesting and I though it was well put together, but don't want to go into more detail - I don't want to spoil it for readers.

I think that former Goosebumps readers will enjoy this one, and anyone looking for a more YA speeed style horror will also enjoy. Overall a great spooomy read for October.

Thank you SO MUCH to Netgalley and HarperTeen for granting me access to the e-arc of this book. The review is entirely my own and has my honest thoughts and opinions!

It might be past Halloween, but I’m still not done with my spooky vibes and dark academia reads. And this was deliciously one of them. All That Consumes Us is a fantastic tale of coming into your own power, your own self, and realizing your self worth and owning it. It’s fantastically written and I enjoyed every second of being immersed in this tale.

Writing: I adored the author’s writing in this book. She has a talent for creating different atmospheres to match the location of the main character. Her writing is so descriptive and real that its almost easy to believe she’s writing this tale from personal experience.

Characters: I greatly enjoyed our main character. Tara is incredibly relatable and I think that’s what makes this story so spooky. It’s very, VERY easy to place yourself into her shoes and see yourself as the main character, making the choices Tara makes and suffering the same way that Tara does.

Additionally, this story hosts a fantastic range of characters with representations from all over. BIPOC, Disabled, Gender Queer, LGBTQIA+, Trans - honestly, you name it. This book was written so that anyone could pick it up and find someone who represents them, and I LOVE seeing that in stories.

All the side characters are fully developed and have their own struggles and growing pains that they also go through along side our main hero, Tara. Every single member of Magni Viri are completely fleshed out. They all come alive brilliantly on the pages.

Plot: The plot starts out slow, but about 50% through it picks up. The author is very talented at keeping her secrets while giving incredibly teasing hints of foreshadowing, and then once the ball drops and the truth is revealed, the plot train takes off and doesn’t stop until you’re breathless at the last page. It’s seriously fantastic! I was on the edge of my seat for a good deal of the story once the curtain was lifted on the truth about Magni Viri.

Enjoyment: I LOVED THIS. 100% would read again. And absolutely do recommend!