Erica Water’s new gothic, dark academia novel, All That Consumes Us, is at times confined by genre tropes, but slowly it becomes its own contemporary hybrid. Tara Boone, a struggling 17 year old freshman at a private southern college, is accepted into an elite and secretive society, Magni Viri, after the tragic death of one of its members. Tara is in the Jane Eyre mold: a penniless, functionally orphaned girl with big dreams who is held back by self-doubt. At first it is difficult for Tara to fit in with the seemingly privileged and supernaturally talented Magni Viri students, but she will do anything for the guaranteed success promised to all its graduates – or will she?

The combination of Tara’s insecurities and the obfuscations of everyone around her make the middle of the book drag, but fortunately, genuinely surprising plot twists emerge. In true gothic fashion, Tara believes she is being haunted and her increasingly restless nights cause the atmosphere of dread to swell like a cicada’s whine. Unlike its genre’s predecessors, All That Consumes Us is refreshingly diverse. Though underdeveloped, the main lovestory is queer and there is purposeful diversity in the side character’s race, gender, class, and ability. This book will be appreciated more by future English majors who have read the heavily referenced The Secret History & Jane Eyre, but at its core this is an atmospheric ghost story lush with spooky, autumn vibes that many readers will enjoy.

Reviewed by Ivy Burns, Merrill Memorial Library, Yarmouth