A Review of Eight Will Fall and the Certain Way that Horror Can Be Comforting

Originally, the first time I heard about Eight Will Fall it was because a book subscription box I was considering was doing it for their November box. I read the little blurb, was intrigued, and searched to figure out what the title was to find out more information. I decided not to get the box because well, money, and set it aside in my mind until a few days before it was set to release when I was scrolling Twitter during a slow moment of life. Lo and behold, Emily A. Duncan, author of Wicked Saints and it's following sequels, quote tweeted about it along with her excitement for someone finally delivering dark fantasy that we deserve.

Of course my attention was immediately snagged, dark fantasy is some of the hardest stuff to write, let alone find good attempts at it. And I had already been interested enough in it when I first heard about it that I knew I'd end up reading it one day, so...

Of course I bought it on release day and brought it home with me along with another book that I had already been planning on getting. That book was Starsight, sequel to the equally as phenomenal Skyward, an all around perfect YA Sci-fi series by Brandon Sanderson. But I'll save my review of that for another day, because I'd love to do one of the whole series in two years!

Either way, I ended up reading Eight Will Fall on Thanksgiving day and blasting through it all in that one day. That's because it was absolutely incredible, but also because it was exactly what I needed that day. It was chilly, I was at home with my mom, and we were stuffing our faces with good food.

It almost made me appreciate our kinda lonely Thanksgiving all the more with how utterly horrifying it was!

But, I digress, here's my actual review.

Cat's Rating 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Eight Will Fall is a dark fantasy where emotions are magic and magic is outlawed, suppressed, and punishable in many ways. Empaths, magic users, literally cannot use their magic, because well, there is a stone that they and everyone else not lucky enough to be noble, are forced to mine.

But seventeen year old Larkin and her young brother are the exceptions. They don't know why they can resist, but their mother can too, and so they keep quiet. Till the day of her birthday arrives and they have a bit more money than usual, so she goes to buy groceries, that include flour for a cake they normally wouldn't get. The grocer turns her down and in her anger, she turns his anger into destructive magic and then flees.

The next day guards come for her and her brother and they're dragged into the Queen's dungeons. There they find that they're not the only empaths being dragged in for various crimes such as murder, desertion, etc.

The Queen declares that they, all eight, will be sent into the caves beneath the island where once, hundreds of years ago, the god of darkness, an empath himself, was also sent after betraying the goddess of light, their first queen.

She tells them that people have been dying by way of massive sinkholes that have been opening around the island, sucking people in to never be seen again. That they sent in ten thousand troops that never returned, the only survivor an empath soldier who deserted.

Another Empath she sends with them is Amias, a young man who hadn't been seen by his village since he tore it apart when he was a child.

They're sent in with weapons and supplies for two weeks, a sure death sentence in their minds. If they return they're free to go and their families will be safe, but if they don't, well.

Things kick off pretty much immediately after they're locked in the caves, and Larkin loses her supplies. Slowly but surely they make their way through these caves, deeper, their minds being turned inside out, as they begin to believe in the dark god out for their blood.

Horrors included eyes being torn out and added to fleshy paintings along hallways. Skeletons being joined together along walls by their ribs and viscera, and the icing on top of the gore cake, a feast where their loved ones are recreated in other corpses around a massive dining table covered in other gore.

Yet, along with all of that there's this sense of belonging within the group, even when they argue, when they lose one of the group. There's this warmth that comes from knowing that even though they might die, they'll die together, but it's never morbid, this acknowledgement that death is right around the corner always.

It just is.

It really, truly blew my mind, how incredibly wonderful this book was, just so well written, so perfectly crafted. It's so very clear Sarah Harian loves her world, her characters, and just has this innate gift for making you feel that even though there's all this horrible crap happening, in the end, it will truly be okay.

I remember at the beginning of the year, there was this bad snowstorm, and of course I got snowed in to my apartment. I had a smaller TBR then, or at least a smaller one that I had in my hands.

But there was one book I had recently gotten that had been raved about around me for a good while, so I picked it up, and all alone in my cozy snowed in apartment, I read Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand front to back.

It was horrifying, it was empowering, and above all... I dunno, it was just comforting somehow.

And it doesn't stop at horror books, in fact... I'd even say the movie As Above So Below does the same exact thing for me. It's just perfect in absolutely every single way even though it holds all of my big fears in the palm of it's bloodied hands.

I think in the end, it could just be horror, or as I've discovered writing this post, it's women overcoming horrifying, world ending encounters with the strengths they're usually shamed for. Their hearts.

This was an incredibly scattered ramble review, but I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts about it! It may be the holidays, but I think it's always horror time, because what better time to face the flaws of humanity than when we think we're only showing our best off!