Book Review: Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

While a grieving widower named Ghost is drawing into a dangerous ritual of dark magic by an elderly gentleman named Heart Crawley, a homosexual couple is the object of homophobic hate crimes. The small town in which they all live devolves into darkness and hatred. Will the ritual right the wrongs done?

Or will I choose to not finish a novel because the one of the hate crimes against a homosexual man get too serious for me to continue reading? That was the case with this novel, though I did eventually go back and finish. Begrudgingly. Part of my wanted to see how these two stories ended, but the ending was not enough of a payoff for me to have made it through this story of trauma and grief.

This novel follows two storylines that eventually converge but the lead up is not enough to convince me that these two stories belong in the same novel. It reminds me of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary in which King added the side story of Zelda, the mom’s sister with meningitis, and it just felt like filler for the actual plot of pets coming back to life with disastrous consequences. It added nothing except to the actual story, and could have easily been its own novel.

That is exactly how I felt with this novel. The storyline of the grieving widower, Ghost, being drawing into a world of the charismatic yet creepy Heart Crawley does not align with the story of a gay cop and his husband getting attacked by homophobes. If they had been two different novels, I think each would have been stronger reads. Together, they do not compliment each other.

Part of me likes what LaRocca is trying to say about the hatred in our society, but I feel like he falls short here. His writing style is beautiful, but this is not one I would recommend to anyone who suffers from PTSD (I do) or is triggered by certain violent acts. I could barely finish this novel. Just barely.

Two out of five stars.