We Ate the Dark by Mallory Pearson (ARC Review)

Title: We Ate the Dark
Author: Mallory Pearson
Type: Fiction
Genre: Adult, Horror
Publisher: 47North
Published: February 1, 2024

A complimentary physical copy of this book was kindly provided by Firefly Books Distribution in exchange for an honest review.

Five years after Sofia Lyon disappeared, her remains are found stuffed into the hollow of a tree bursting through the floorboards of an abandoned house in the woods. The women who loved her flock home to the North Carolina hills to face their grief.

Frankie, Sofia’s twin, is in furious mourning. Poppy is heartbroken. Cass has never felt more homesick. And Marya knows something the rest of them don’t. Determined to find Sofia’s murderer, they share more than a need to see justice done for their friend. Each woman is haunted, bound to the next by something both cruel and kind, and now stalked by a shadowy presence they’ve yet to understand. Only to question, and to fear.

As Sofia’s secrets unravel, so do those of the woods, and the women soon realize that Sofia might not be who they thought she was at all. And that whoever—or whatever—killed her is coming after them.

⤖ My Review ⬻

I was really intrigued by the combination of horror and mystery that was promised in the synopsis of Mallory Pearson’s We Ate the Dark. I was therefore quite excited to dive in! Once I started reading, one of the first things I noticed was that I was having a difficult time keeping the characters apart. At first, I thought this was due to the story being new to me, but then found that it continued happening throughout the entire book. So I struggled to keep up a little bit due to this.

I can’t say much about the next part except that the narrative jumps back and forth on some things…and I found that I cared more about one storyline than the other, so when it flipped to the other, I would read more slowly. This shift in focus made it challenging to stay fully engaged, as I was much more invested in one plot thread over the other.

Being a horror fan is part of what drew me to this book, and I was disappointed to find that for me it wasn’t all that scary (though this might be good news for some of you! Haha.) Maybe my threshold has become too high. There were some developments in We Ate the Dark that kept me engaged for sure, and I did like the setting.

I would still read something else by this author depending on the synopsis, but We Ate the Dark did not end up being what I was expecting or hoping for. Don’t let this stop you from diving in, though, if the synopsis intrigues you!