![]() It’s a novel that will resonate with anyone who struggles with that gray cloud and its downpour of torrential darkness. This is not a work of nihilism, and you’re not left feeling empty upon completion. Also Read: We’re Living In The Age of Queer HorrorĮverything the Darkness Eatsis, at times, as bleak as the title suggests, but LaRocca threads a strand of hope throughout. It might have been tempting to deviate from the course and expand upon the lore and mythos, but LaRocca keeps the focus where it belongs: the human characters. I needed to remind myself that the otherworldly horrors are not the story here. However, perhaps I’m just conditioned by our cultural landscape of shared universes and literal encyclopedias written on fictional worlds and creatures. He purposely pulls back from spoon-feeding the reader information regarding the supernatural entities and gods of unknown origins that populate the pages, but I wanted a slightly larger taste. The fantasy nerd in me did want more from the world LaRocca created here. Suicide will find traces of those works’ DNA throughout, but Everyhing the Darkness Eats remains refreshing and completely its own. Fans of The Damnation Game by Clive Barker and Nicole Cushing’s Mr. He writes violence with the nimble prose of a 19th-century French poet and has a penchant for ending chapters that punch directly in the gut and leave you with nothing but lingering dread. If I gave the impression that this book lacks thrills and spills, let me reassure you that no other author in contemporary horror drenches a page in blood like LaRocca-and I don’t mean in quantity or shock value. It takes off from the first page with kinetic energy. Sitting at under three-hundred pages, the novel is lean and mean. Also Read: 8 Horror Novels That Need a Film Adaptation ASAP ![]() While Everything the Darkness Eats can be a depressing book, it is far from a slog. The novel is an exercise in pondering the age-old, theological questions: Why did God make us, and why must we suffer? Thankfully, LaRocca makes it an enjoyable trek through that ponderance. For instance, the manner in which he captures the desolation of age for an older woman character, to look back upon one’s life and feel regret, made me put down the book and text my mom. LaRocca writes poignantly of the darker aspects of the queer experience (self-hatred, fear, isolation) but also of a universal sense of loneliness and desperation. There’s a profound sadness that permeates throughout the novel. The two carry their scars on their flesh and in silent suffering, but old wounds soon reopen (as well as plenty of new ones) when they cross paths with a mysterious older gentleman who seeks to wield a power no mortal was ever meant to possess. They struggle with a world that sees them as the other, as monsters, because of their sexuality and the traumas that mar them inside and out. In the town of Henley’s Edge, people are disappearing, but two residents named Malik and Ghost (“Like the thing that goes ‘boo.’”) have never truly felt visible. Also Read: How Manhunt Author Gretchen Felker-Martin Explores Apocalyptic Body Horror
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |