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bebocarrick 's review for:
Everything the Darkness Eats
by Eric LaRocca
I really hated a lot of this book. It wasn't all bad, but I just think it dealt with some of its key themes/characters so poorly that it truthfully made me sick to my stomach and I never want to pick it up again. It also heavily relied on some tropes that I'm sooooo tired of.
1. Ghost's character immediately turned me off with how fucking pretentious he sounded in his grief. Grief is a bitch, but the way he thought and talked about it made me so angry. How he treated Piper was also so icky. I was CRINGING when he started creepily talking to her at the hospital and constantly thinking about her "lost innocence." I cringed so much harder when he
2. At least in the audiobook, there was no trigger warning for incredibly violent gang rape or homophobia of any kind. As both of these went hand in hand in the book, it was incredibly hard to read as a queer person, and it wasn't necessary to include traumatic descriptions of this AT ALL. The victim also sympathizing with/finding his attacker attractive was such a damaging portrayal for rape victims. I'm all down for queer horror, I just don't want the horror to be homophobia because like... I get that enough in real life. It's just such an overdone/unnecessary thing to have queer characters whose whole plot revolves around queer trauma.
3. Ghost and Malik's storylines were not tied together well at all. It felt incredibly rushed and I wish they were integrated so much better.
4. The whole "chosen one" trope in this book also pissed me off.
I left this book angry at the treatment of queer characters/queer trauma, pissed off at Ghost for being creepy and getting away with it, and super annoyed at the trope-heaviness of it all.
Sadly, the prologue got me so excited to read the book! I was super excited and hoping the rest of the book was as spooky and fun as the prologue, and then it just let me down big time. :/
1. Ghost's character immediately turned me off with how fucking pretentious he sounded in his grief. Grief is a bitch, but the way he thought and talked about it made me so angry. How he treated Piper was also so icky. I was CRINGING when he started creepily talking to her at the hospital and constantly thinking about her "lost innocence." I cringed so much harder when he
Spoiler
KIDNAPPED HER and justified the whole thing in his brain as taking her to see her "sick" mom.2. At least in the audiobook, there was no trigger warning for incredibly violent gang rape or homophobia of any kind. As both of these went hand in hand in the book, it was incredibly hard to read as a queer person, and it wasn't necessary to include traumatic descriptions of this AT ALL. The victim also sympathizing with/finding his attacker attractive was such a damaging portrayal for rape victims. I'm all down for queer horror, I just don't want the horror to be homophobia because like... I get that enough in real life. It's just such an overdone/unnecessary thing to have queer characters whose whole plot revolves around queer trauma.
3. Ghost and Malik's storylines were not tied together well at all. It felt incredibly rushed and I wish they were integrated so much better.
4. The whole "chosen one" trope in this book also pissed me off.
Spoiler
Like... you're so mad at God that you can somehow withstand his presence without worshipping him and thus you're the ONLY reasonable choice to be a ritual sacrifice to him? Really?I left this book angry at the treatment of queer characters/queer trauma, pissed off at Ghost for being creepy and getting away with it, and super annoyed at the trope-heaviness of it all.
Sadly, the prologue got me so excited to read the book! I was super excited and hoping the rest of the book was as spooky and fun as the prologue, and then it just let me down big time. :/