eric larocca's "everything the darkness eats" takes you through a horrific tale with interwoven perspectives that all reside in a small connecticut after a series of individuals mysteriously disappear. if you're wanting to get into larocca's works but don't want to start with anything super intense, i would dip my toe into ETDE. the first larocca book i read was "things have gotten worse since we last spoke", which you can imagine was a jarring start to my extreme horror journey lol!! most certainly check trigger warnings before reading–it does tackle some heavy and potentially upsetting content. i will provide a list of ones i caught below.

the only portion of the book i didn't like was ghost very frequently voicing his hatred for God. i understand it is relevant to the theme of the book and his character though. all in all, "everything the darkness eats" is a riveting and entertaining read that will keep you guessing throughout every chapter.

trigger warnings:
- homophobia
- hate crimes revolting homosexuality
- death of a spouse
- suicidal ideation
- blasphemy

I was a fan on the author's previous work which was "things have gotten worse since we last spoke" so I thought I'd enjoy this as well but this was not my cup of tea.
It has a lot of graphic details and needs a lot of trigger warnings before going into it. I don't care to read about people torturing people. It's terrible

Yet another dark and bizarre story by one of my favourite new-ish authors. This horror novella reads like a full length novel, with tones of fantasy and magical realism. While not my favourite by LaRocca, I enjoyed the entwined stories and shocking conclusion and I absolutely love these character builds. There are many layers to this one and in my opinion it would make a fantastic bookclub or group readalong read.

Instagram post link to come

There has been considerable buzz around Eric LaRocca in the horror community over the last couple of years, publishing his own collection and featured in other anthologies, several novellas including the widely discussed Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and the novel You’ve Lost Alot of Blood. LaRocca has also been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and is a winner of the Splatterpunk Award for Things Have Gotten Worse.

Although I have read a lot about LaRocca Everything the Darkness Eats was my first foray into his fiction and although I had issues with the book was still impressed enough to download You’ve Lost Alot of Blood for further investigation. The action takes place in the rural New England small town of Henley’s Edge where there are three intertwined stories, however, the lack of connection one of the story has to the other two was a particular weakness of the story. Overall, not enough happened and at around 200 pages it either needed to be fleshed out into a longer novel or tightened and shortened into a novella. Ultimately this felt like a novella being stretched out and the shorter option might have been a better fit.

The first plotline concerns Sergeant Nadeem Malik who, with his husband Brett, is relatively new to the town and early in proceedings it becomes clear that they have failed to make friends, barely know their neighbours, and it is probably because they are gay. A hate crime soon follows and events quickly spiral out of control as their loving relationship is ripped apart by a current of unbridled hatred which simmers beneath the guise of the town’s quiet veneer. Although this was an interesting enough plot its connection to the wider story arcs amounted to almost zero and had nothing to do with the wider supernatural direction the plot takes. It also leads to a very graphic and elongated rape scene, which I would question the overall value of featuring. If this plotline contributes next to nothing to the supernatural theme what was the point of it beyond using a sledgehammer approach to show that gay couples are victims or homophobia still exists?

Nadeem Malik might be a policeman but he spends very little time investigating the mysterious crime which acts as the backdrop to Everything the Darkness Eats involving the strange disappearance of random elderly people, one of which is covered in the early stages of the book. It is not exactly a mystery novel and the reader finds out too early what is going on and might expect Sergeant Malik to start sniffing around the case, but that never happens and the mystery or police investigation angle is a surprising dead end.

Heart Crowley introduces the supernatural part of the story and is clearly up to no good as he takes a smitten spinster for a drive in his opening scene. With a strong Stephen King’s Needful Things vibe I found the direction of this story to be catchy but ultimately it lacked explanation and ‘Crowley’ is such a cliched name to give a villain one would expect to find it in Scoobie Doo rather than a modern horror novel. Clowley also lacks the character definition which is given to Malik and one could not help wonder why the locals had not clocked his distinctive car cruising their streets.

The third plotline involves a down-on-his-luck guy called Ghost who is struggling to recover from the tragic loss of a loved and crosses path with Crowley. Early in proceedings Ghost meets Gemma and her blind daughter Piper and after a single meeting seems to develop an infatuation over her. I did not find this particularly believable, there was an especially dumb kidnapping scene, and it came across as a clunky way of bringing together two of the plotlines.

Eric LaRocca is undoubtedly telling us that darkness lurks in small towns and that bigotry and discrimination of queer people still exists. Yes, okay. But to produce a horror novel of substance more is required than three loosely connected plots. Once everything connects together Everything the Darkness Eats did not add up to much and although it was an easy enough read it lacked the edge to really grab me.

Before this review, I want to share the good things about this book!:
- good general premise
- the two characters’ separate povs were well done
- the idea of the wraith was GREAT
———————————————

I read Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke almost a year ago, and I didn’t care for it at all, even though everyone loved it. After recognizing the name on Netgalley, I decided to read this book to try one of LaRocca’s books again. I didn’t enjoy this one either.

This book feels like a rough draft. Every other sentence is a metaphor or a simile. This is not an exaggeration, i counted about five similes on one page. On top of this, there were several points in the story where I was just like… This doesn’t make any sense.

There is a moment where Ghost sees a sad child with her mother at a hospital, and he goes up to the child and asks her for her name, pretending he already knows her and was “looking everywhere” for her. The girl acts scared and doesn’t give him her name. He sounds like a kidnapper! This situation screams kidnapper! But the mother encourages the little girl to give her name, and then gives Ghost her phone number!

A very frustrating part of this book is just how much the police cannot do their job. There’s several disappearances happening under the same circumstances, and they’re like “hmmm… it might be connected”. But there’s no evidence they’re trying that hard to find the killer, who is driving around in a big black car, openly inviting people into the car, and then taking them to the big scary mansion in town. There’s also apparently a group of people you can just hire to kill hanging out at a bar and telling anyone who asks exactly who they are. When Ghost kidnaps Piper using a TAXI, the taxi driver says nothing, the police don’t catch the taxi pulling up to the store after the kidnapping, how is Ghost not caught???

Some more personal qualms:
- the way disability is written about in this book. Piper is blind, there are multiple descriptions of her relating to this that just absolutely rubbed me the wrong way.
- That rape scene was unnecessary. And so was then trying to make one of the rapists seem like a sympathetic character for a split second. There was no reason to give that character any backstory, it just seemed thrown in.
- Back to the repetition, there’s a lot of “as if”, “like”, and “seemed”. Ghost would not shut up about being “invisible”. But there were also way too many mentions of urine and feces, especially mentions of someone urinating. I swear it was mentioned something like five times in the last half of the book for seemingly no reason.
- The homophobia seemed out of place and poorly written. I don’t know how else to describe it, but it felt like it was really trying to make a point, and failing.

Final thoughts:
The writing style needs editing, and the story needs editing. This story and the writing style are trying really hard to be something amazing, but it’s falling flat, and the characters fell flat too.


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher

I would like to thank CLASH Books for sending me an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warnings: homophobia, graphic violence, rape, hate crimes, coercion, pedophilia, and kidnapping

I have been eagerly awaiting Eric LaRocca's DEBUT NOVEL since it was announced. I have been a huge fan of Eric LaRocca since Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, and my love for their work has only grown with each additional story I've read from them. I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to read We Can Never Leave This Place, They Were Here Before Us, and their contribution to The Book of Queer Saints prior to their releases; I was even more excited to have the opportunity to read Everything the Darkness Eats early as well... especially because the edition of the ARC that I was sent by CLASH Books had the original cover for the novel. Needless to say, I had high expectations for this novel, and it did NOT disappoint.

I want to start by explaining to you how much I love LaRocca's writing. I've said this many times before, but their writing makes me feel like I've never known "reading for pleasure" until reading their works. They, so effortlessly, string together words so that the story becomes a buffet of delicacies for the reader to savor before consuming. I am asked to read every line with intention, and I feel that I've read very few books that request that level of concentration from me, as the reader. Their writing is beautifully hypnotic, and it draws you deeper and deeper into the depths of the darkness after which the novel is titled.

In this novel, we follow the perspectives of three queer men and their experiences in the town of Henley's Edge: Crowley, Ghost, and Malik. Each of these three men are plagued by the darkness at the center of their town; facing their own demons, their paths cross in the most unexpected ways. LaRocca doesn't shy away from the complexities of their characters; the characters within this novel are heavily flawed in their own ways, but we, as the reader, find compassion for most of them. These aren't your stereotypical, cookie-cutter queer men... they are real, and they deal with REAL issues facing the queer community, disabled community, and those with religious trauma.

The conversations, both explicit AND implicit, about religious trauma were mesmerizing, and I was so ecstatic to see it represented in such a manner because it resonated with me so deeply. As someone who grew up in the church with an extremely religious mother, a lot of the conversations presented within this book were ones that I've had internally for decades now, and it was incredible to see it written in such a beautifully horrific way within these pages. This novel made me realize my love for horror stories that center the trauma that many experience at the hands of organized religion.

LaRocca also discusses the everyday fears of being a queer person in a queer relationship. Even within a happy, loving relationship comes the fear of being perceived by the wrong person and feeling like the cause of your partner's pain: "... a common display of affection for some, and yet a vile monstrosity when the hands belonged to two men. They pulled apart, eyes lowering as if embarrassed, as if suddenly remembering they should be ashamed" [pp. 55]. There were so many scenes in this novel that were horrifying and gut-wrenching for me as a queer man because they were rooted in what queer people face for just existing. This was another aspect of the novel that made me feel seen and understood.

There's not much more to say about this novel without getting into spoilers (which I plan to do in the next section of my review); therefore, if you enjoy queer horror, religious themes, graphic violence, flawed characters, and unique speculative elements, then I believe you will enjoy Eric Larocca's debut novel, Everything the Darkness Eats.

Once you read the novel, you should come back to this review to read my spoiler-filled thoughts, and to check out the spreadsheet I created for my annotations. I plan to add to this with every re-read of this book that I do, so I figured that it may be fun to share things that I found important enough to mark throughout the story: the recurring floral motif (19+), the religious themes (16+), the all-too-real queer experiences (10+), my conspiracies while reading (4+), and SO MUCH MORE! Click the following link to see for yourself, but BE WARNED... here there be SPOILERS: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ne2JdUQyIjipBr9TKf-_vXxUsSSFjz6nOLzp7hC2gxo/edit?usp=sharing

SPOILER THOUGHTS:

Okay, now that it's just us squirrel friends... let's talk SPOILERS!

I'm going to refrain from discussing specific plot points here; however, if you want to discuss those with me, feel free to DM me here or on my instagram (@bookishlybrandon) to discuss! I want to spend this time to discuss the overall themes of this novel. To me, it was a commentary on God and humanity. LaRocca seemed to be making the argument that humans hold the true power, and God is merely a conduit for human action or inaction. In this novel, the God present within its pages is only capable of doing what is willed to be done by the humans with which it interacts. For example, Crowley's interaction with this God caused pain and destruction with his ideals that, quite literally, matched up with the rites and ceremonies present within many a Christian sect:

- "Ghost winced, the old man's blood dripping on his forehead. It wasn't long before Ghost's face was spattered with red." (Communion?) [pp. 180]
- "Mr. Crowley flashed a grin at him. Then, with a flick of his wrist, the old man commanded the beads of blood smeared along Ghost's forehead to form the shape of a small cross. When he was finished and satisfied with his work, Mr. Crowley completed the prayer in Latin." (Ash Wednesday or an anointing of oil?) [pp. 182]
- "'You'll have to go under and hold your breath while I recite the prayer,' Mr. Crowley explained. 'It's imperative you stay under until I'm finished.'" (Baptism?) [pp. 194]
- "'If this is going to work, I need you to offer me the very last of your resistance, dear boy,' Mr. Crowley demanded. 'I know you've been hiding it from me.'" (Total submission paired with a confession-- similar to the act of "being saved")[pp. 208]

For Crowley it was: religiosity, priesthood, ceremonies, taking advantage, manipulation, brainwashing, and the want for power. His queerness doesn't relieve him of his villainy... and I'm glad that LaRocca went with that approach to show the full range of the spectrum for queer characters. Crowley sought power, and he was willing to use whatever he could, paired with the conduit (God), to get the power he craved.

Aversely, for Ghost (a queer, disabled man with an albatross of sorts around his neck (which we all know becomes important at the end of the novel)) it was: empathy, love, and the erasure of trauma rather than the feeling of it for the rest of their lives. Ghost has more love for the other queer men in this story than the God that created them because of his wish for the erasure of Malik's memories of his gang-rape and torture. God only does that THROUGH GHOST'S ACTION... without Ghost providing the wish, the God would have kept things the way they were. Not only that, but Ghost didn't even want recognition for his "good deed" toward Malik. God seeks to be praised for all of eternity and literally asks for "all the glory" from his creations, but Ghost sees that it isn't necessary. He can live his life knowing that he helped other people without feeling that THEY needed to know that he helped them.

It wasn't until writing this review, and referencing Ghost's "wraith" as an albatross, that I started to speculate about its potential meaning a bit more. I literally wrote on the last page of the book, "is it representative of intuition?" We saw that Piper, too, had a wraith around her neck; because of this, I was left wondering what the wraith represented. I think it may, like the albatross from Susan Hill's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," represent the burden of guilt and regret.

Ghost carries the burden of the death of Hailey, his partner, and their unborn child: "It was his fault she was there, after all. It was all his fault" [pp.49]. Ghost was driving in a storm, Hailey had asked him to pull over, but he insisted he could keep driving through the storm. One distracted glance at Hailey later, and headlights were pointed right at him. He swerved to miss it and ran into an oak tree that crushed the car and his partner. Because of the guilt that Ghost harbors for the death of his partner, he wants to prevent anyone else from experiencing the pain and heartbreak he's experienced.

This wraith of guilt also destroys Crowley when he comes into contact with it because Crowley doesn't seem to have an ounce of guilt for the pain and destruction he's caused; when confronted with it, it becomes to much for him to bear, and he perishes.

As for Piper, we're never explicitly given a reason for a feeling of guilt she may have around her neck in the form of her wraith; however, I think that it isn't difficult to relay it back to her blindness and the fear she has of burdening her mother, Gemma. We never see Gemma express this sentiment to Piper; however, the fact that Gemma was willing to follow Crowley for the opportunity of Gemma's blindness to be "cured" could be argued that it may have been because of the increased difficulty of raising a blind child. Again, this could have been exacerbated by Piper and Gemma's family members who cared for Piper while Gemma was missing. Expressing their hopes for their daughter being alive through some excuses that may have been reasons why Gemma would've just left Piper without warning. One of those reasons could've been, again, the added stress that Gemma faced as the parent of a blind child. Again, most of this is based around assumptions, but it could be argued nonetheless. I think this understanding of the wraiths makes more sense than any of the others I've thought up so far.

I look forward to rereading this novel someday and picking up on things I may have missed during my first read; however, I know that this book will be one that I think about LONG after finishing it (it's already been several weeks since I finished it, and I'm STILL thinking about it daily). I'd love to hear what you all thought of it as well, so feel free to let me know in the comments!

A short and potent book that is as difficult to explain as it was (at times) to read. I do mean that in a complimentary way. It was unflinching, brutal, and intense, but it discussed elements of the human experience (such as the desire to punch G_d in the face) that I've never seen explored on the page so explicitly. I do wish I had had a content warning for sexual assault and homophobia before reading, but it would not have stopped me from reading this book, so we persevere. It was wonderful to see disability portrayed in a non-horrific light in a horror novel. It was also wonderful to see an explicitly nonbinary side character, and refreshing to see queer people who were portrayed as, well, people - without having to be spokespeople for their entire community. That said, this is not a book I would recommend to just anyone. Only my nearest and dearest sickos.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

I think LaRocca's strength lies in short stories, the narrative struggled in this. A lot of it felt gratuitous, suffering for the sake of suffering. Not my favorite of his but still, an interesting premise that could have been explored further.

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.