Feathers and Fae

Feathers and Fae is a young adult fantasy novel by Crystal L. Kirkham. It was published in October of 2019 by Kyanite Publishing LLC. I was provided with an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

The story follows two teens, Kami and Emmett, who have been best friends for as long as either could remember. Emmett, however, has a secret and his past catches up with him when a dark fae known as the Erlkrönig chases them into another realm, Mythos. When Kami awakes, she can detect when people are lying and that means she knows everything Emmett has ever told her is a lie. Emmett wants to get Kami home, to safety, as quickly as possible while avoiding the Erlkrönig, who is hunting them. On the journey, Emmett’s web of lies starts to unravel and Kami learns the truth, which shakes the foundations of everything she knows to be true.

Feathers and Fae is a book that doesn’t hold many surprises. At the beginning of the story, Emmett is somewhat of an enigma. He clearly has this innate need to protect Kami, although the reason isn’t initially clear. After the pair wind up in Mythos, as a result of Emmett using a previously unknown, to the reader, power, there’s a mystery surrounding what exactly he is. It becomes clear that he also has some sort of connect to the Erlkrönig, which adds some intrigue. All of that intrigue goes out of the window the second time Emmett uses his powers. It becomes very clear exactly what species he is, yet the book continues to try and make it seem like a mystery. Some might say that the title somewhat spoils that particular plot twist, but the title is vague enough to prevent me from saying its entirely predictable in that sense. My biggest complaint centers around the narrative acting like Emmett’s secret is harder to guess than it actually is. Rather than being foreshadowed, it’s pretty much spelled out a hundred pages before someone in the story actually says what he is.

I may be getting ahead of myself. Let’s discuss the characters for a moment. There are about five characters we care about: Emmett, Kami, the seer Jewel, a yeti named Bob and, of course, the bad guy the Erlkrönig. There’s not a lot I can really say about Emmett or Kami. I found them both to be rather bland and one-dimensional. Emmett wants to keep is secrets and get Kami to safety. Kami wants real answers about what the hell is happening and flip-flops between being angry or not angry, at Emmett for being reluctant to give those answers. It felt like a few scenes were repetitive with Kami asking for answers, not getting them and then being grumpy about it, and those scenes started to annoy me after a while. Jewel is a seer they meet to ask how to get home, and she invites herself along on their journey. I liked Jewel for the most part. She was the person who prevented Kami from being completely in the dark, because, as a seer, she knew what information she needed to know at each stage of the adventure. Something that I didn’t like was the fact that Jewel, who’s a seer, keeps ending up in situations where she can’t use her abilities. Her powers aren’t written consistently, and she ends up saying “sorry I didn’t see this” too many times. Bob is a yeti. He’s my favorite character because there isn’t a convoluted backstory or explanation to explain why he’s there. They need a guide through some mountains and he offers to be theirs. Lastly, we have our villain, the Erlkrönig, who’s what most would recognize as a pure evil villain. He wants power. He already has power, but he wants more. He won’t stop until he has all of the power. Emmett beat him once, but didn’t vanquish him, and he’s come back to finish what he started. Fantasy novels are where I see pure evil villains and that’s where they kind of fit the best. They don’t have nuance because they don’t need nuance, they just want to take over the world or whatever. He’s evil and that’s all there is to him.

The plot of Feathers and Fae is a little all over the place. Emmett and Kami wind up in Mythos and they need to get home, to their own realm, before the Erlkrönig finds them and exacts his revenge. The premise is simple, but in a story that’s ultimately about defeating the Erlkrönig, a lot of the story is padded with showing the journey they need to take to get to a portal that’s supposed to take them home. Reaching the portal ends up mattering only in a “if they don’t do x, y can’t happen and thus z is harder to explain” sense. I feel like some of this was done as a way of world-building, but it didn’t feel organic here. If a story is chronicling a journey, then the stops made during that journey need to have an impact on the story as a whole. That doesn’t happen here. The pair, and Jewel, go to the elves territory to use a portal there, only to be turned away. The group then needs to head to the dwarves’ land to use a portal deep in the mountains. The run-in with the elves has no impact later, so the story could’ve worked with the original destination being the dwarves’ land. Once they reach the portal, the story shifts again from being about Emmett and Kami getting home to needing to defeat the Erlkrönig, with very few sightings or threats by him between them coming to Mythos and needing to stop him. If there’d been either less focus on the journey, or if the Erlkrönig was written as a more dire threat during the group’s travels, the flow would’ve worked a little better. There’s a clear reason why the pacing is the way that it is. The long journey gives time for more information about Emmett, and his connection to Kami, to come to light without doing an info dump. The problem is that the most important information is still delivered by Emmett, as a clear info dump, right before the climax. If the same information had been revealed slowly, on the journey, I would’ve liked it better.

Now, let’s discuss the conclusion of the story. Emmett, Kami, Bob and Jewel need to defeat the Erlkrönig to avoid him taking over Mythos, and then the other realms. The book is roughly 380 pages. The final battle, the climax of the story, is 17 pages long. It’s not even 5% of the book. Now, there had been tension building for a while, especially after Emmett encounters the Erlkrönig face-to-face and is captured by him, but that’s an incredibly rushed final confrontation. It’s not like prior to this fight, the characters kept having run-ins with the villain either. For most of the story, they’re traveling, with the vague threat of the bad guy chasing after them. The final confrontation is very rushed. It reads as very rushed. The good guys start losing, Emmett as one last idea to try, and then they win. It’s not dramatic, or drawn out and the way that the heroes win falls just shy of a deus ex machina moment.

Thus far, this review has been very negative. I’m aware of that, but there were some things I enjoyed. I liked the actual realm that the story took place in. it had a rich plethora of creatures, species and locations. As part of the journey, the reader didn’t just get to see one section of the map, but several. Through Emmett and Kami, I learned about the different cultures with this world. The magic system wasn’t completely explained, but the parts that were explored, aside from Jewel’s foresight, were easily demonstrated and well-explained. The best way I can really explain it is that I liked the world, but I wasn’t a big fan of the story that was being told in it.

Feathers and Fae isn’t a bad book, just one that I found disappointing. It could be the first book in a series, but it could also be a stand-alone. If it is the first in a series, that would explain why the plot seems to revolve around building the world rather than the main conflict. I feel like the story is actually two stories that are weakly linked together. There’s the story of Emmett and Kami trying to get back to their own realm. And there’s the story of Kami, Emmett and their companions trying to defeat the Erlkrönig. If the author had chosen the first, it could’ve been good. If she’s chosen the second, it would’ve had potential. Instead, she chose both and I can’t say that I understand why. The story had potential, but that potential wasn't fully realized.

Rating: 2.1 stars

My English Teacher Made Me Read It!

Hello and happy Monday. This week, I decided not to post a review, because the book I’m currently reading in order to write a review is taking a little bit longer to finish than I planned. Instead, I’ve decided to do something new. I made a list of all of the books I was forced to read in middle/high school, and I’m going to quickly give just my general opinion of said books. I may do another version of this for college, but I haven’t decided yet.

• The Outsiders- When I read it in 7^th grade, I loved this book. I recently reread this one and I found it to be fairly average. It’s not bad, per se, but boring. There’s action, then a lot of nothing, then a little more action, and then the book ends.
• To Kill A Mockingbird- A fantastic book that covers a difficult topic. Everyone should read it at one point in their lives. The attempts to ban this book are ridiculous.
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Like To Kill A Mockingbird, there have been attempts to ban this book for its use of the N-word, or to in the very least censor it to remove the word. Which is a big mistake. It’s a book that should be read, regardless of how uncomfortable the story may make some readers.  
• The Catcher in the Rye- Over-hyped in my opinion. I don’t know anyone older than 17 that seriously connects with this book. It does a great job hitting the pressure points of teen angst, but that’s about it.
• The Scarlet Letter- Hester Prynne deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for not snapping one day and killing everyone in that village for being an asshole.
• King Lear- My favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies, although that’s not saying much.
• A Thousand Acres- A modernized retelling of King Lear where instead of being an actual king, the father is a farmer who owns a large tract of land. For the most part, it does a good job of translating the premise of King Lear but its even more boring than the play. There’s also an added plot element, to explain some of the rifts in the family, that isn’t handled very well and seems contrived.
• The Great Gatsby- I hate this book so much. It’s boring, I don’t understand why it’s considered one of the “great American novels”, and all of the characters are terrible people. Also, anything you have to say about symbolism usually begins and ends with talking about the stupid billboard with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg.
• The Odyssey- For a book of this length, and as old as the story is, it’s not half bad. It drags in places and gets formulaic, but it at least kept me mostly entertained.
• Beowulf- I really don’t know how I feel about this one. The story itself is pretty simple, and who doesn’t enjoy a story about killing random monsters.
• The Canterbury Tales- I only read parts of this book, but I’m including it. Shakespeare’s hard enough to understand as a high schooler. Chaucer is pretty much impossible. Also, most of the stories are pretty boring.
• Oedipus Rex- Given how Oedipus in known today mostly because of Freud’s nonsense about the Oedipus complex (and I could write an entire novel explaining how screwed up his reasoning there is), I was surprised that I actually felt bad for Oedipus. His story is tragic and for once, the ending of a tragedy makes sense to me. Also, this just goes to show that no one should ever trust an oracle.
• The Poisonwood Bible- This is the most boring book I’ve ever read. Every time I read it, I started to fall asleep. It takes forever for the story to get started, and once it does, I quickly became apathetic. I don’t care about missionaries being sad that they can’t convert people to their religion. Maybe showing up and telling people their belief system is wrong isn’t a smart move.
• Romeo and Juliet- I feel like I don’t have anything to say here that hasn’t already been said. It’s a tragedy because they’re young and dumb and their families both suck. I wish people would stop seeing their relationship as romantic, because that’s just…yikes.

So, there you have it. All of the book I remember being forced to read in English class. I’m sure there are some I’ve just forgotten (or repressed). I can see why these books are required reading in some cases. They’re useful for teaching certain literary concepts and studying things such as themes and figurative language. Just because they’re easy to teach, that doesn’t mean they’re good books, or interesting. As you could plainly see, I thought most of them were boring. Of all of the books I’ve mentioned, I don’t think there are any I would’ve chosen to read on my own.

What were some books you were forced to read and hated? Do you have any opinions on the books mentioned above?

Blogtober Day 31: Wrap-Up

Today is October 31st, as you most likely know. Unless you're reading this in the future. Anyway, since its the last day of the month, and the last day of Blogtober, it's Wrap-Up Time! I've never written one of these before, so I'm sorry if this is lame.

First, I did Blogtober!

I won't lie, I half-expected I wouldn't make it through the month, but somehow I have. Writing content and posting every day isn't easy, but I did. I'm not sure if I'll do something like this ever again, but at least I tried it and I had fun with it.

Now, onto the books I read

I read four books in their entirety this month. I planned on reading five, but the last book, A Secret History of Witches, which was on my TBR, I struggled to get into. I still plan on reading it, but every time I sat down to read it, I didn't have enough time to really get into the story. I'm still going to read it, so be on the look-out for a review of that.

The four books I read are:


The Scarred God - Review can be found here

I gave it a ranking of 3.9 stars because I enjoyed the story and the world, but felt like a little more detail was needed. I'm definitely going to read the next book if/when it's released.


Nightmare Escapade - Review can be found here

I enjoyed this anthology but I'm not sure if it truly counts as horror, since I didn't find myself being scared by any of the stories within. The author clearly has talent, though, and I look forward to seeing more works from him.


Anomaly - Review can be found here

I thought this story was fine. There were some pacing issues, its length also worked against it. The climax didn't entirely make sense and I would've preferred an ending that wasn't obvious sequel-bait.


The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror - Review can be found here

I enjoyed the collection. I named my favorite short stories in my review, but they were great, creative horror stories overall. There were a few that didn't fit the genre in my opinion, but overall the collection is good.

Even though I wasn't able to read as many books as I had planned this month, it was a pretty good month. I liked all four books I read. There were some disappointments, but overall, I'm gonna put this month in the "Win" column and start planning for November.

I hope your October and Halloween have been amazing and you've enjoyed the month as much as I have.

Blogtober Day 19: Books I Regret Reading

There aren't many books that I regret reading, but they do exist. For the most part, I've been pretty lucky in the sense that most books I've read, I was able to find something about them that I enjoyed. Even if they weren't my favorite book ever, I was able to connect with or find interesting something about them.

Yet, every once in a while, I find a book that I just can't stand. I don't like it. I regret reading it. If someone recommends it, I get a little annoyed at the person for suggesting it in the first place. Here are five books that I regret reading.

1) Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

My issue with this book isn't that it's bad, it's that it's boring. Boring and predictable. Something interesting could've been done with the story, but nothing was. None of my expectations were subverted and I was annoyed at the friend who suggested it.

2) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I don't know why this is considered one of the great American novels. It's boring. There's almost no real plot. I hate every character. I was forced to read this for school at least twice and I hate it so much. If I have to hear another person discuss the symbolism behind the billboard of the eye doctor one more time, I will scream.

3) Extras by Scott Westerfeld

This is the fourth book in the Uglies series (Uglies, Pretties, and Specials). I thought the first three books were okay. They weren't groundbreaking, they weren't terrible. They were based on an interesting idea. The problem is, the series was supposed to be a trilogy. Since Specials was supposed to mark the end of the trilogy, this feels tacked on. Tacked on, a little derivative and something I wish I'd skipped.

4) The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

This pick is different from the others. It was the only book where I started reading with specific expectations. I thought this series was going to be similar to the movie with Anne Hathway. Boy, was I wrong. Mia's grandmother is nothing like the character Julie Andrews plays and several aspects are completely different from the film. I guess I regret reading this book only because it seemed like a letdown from the Disney film.

5) Go Ask Alice

This one just depressed me, so its on this list. I don't like books that completely bum me out.

(I know, I know. Most of the time, these lists will either have Twilight or the Fifty Shades series on it. Here's the thing: Twilight isn't terrible. It isn't good, but if we take it for what it is, it's not "the worst thing ever" like some people claim. As for Fifty Shades, I never read those books. I never wanted to read them. I knew I wasn't going to like them. Therefore, I didn't read them, and I can live regret-free on that count. I regret having to see 5,000 trailers for the movies though.)

Those are the five books I most regret reading. What are yours?

Blogtober Day 14: The Scarred God

The Scarred God is a 2019 novel by Neil Beynon. It was released on August 26, 2019 and was published by Haynes Ltd. It's a fantasy book aimed at teenagers. It was one of the books I mentioned during my October TBR post.

The novel tells the story of a teenager named Anya who escapes being captured with the rest of her village when they're attacked by invaders. The invading army is assisted by an exiled god of her culture and Anya goes on a journey through a spelled forest, alongside the forest's mysterious guardian Vedic, to save her people and defeat the exiled god. Along the way, she learned not much separates heroes from villains.

There are some books I read because they're recommended to me. Others, I stumble upon and the premise instantly grabs me. The Scarred God fits into the second category. The idea intrigued me, starting with the teaser/tagline on the cover of the book reading "how do you kill a god?" Once I read that this novel was about a teenage girl going on a quest to kill a god, I couldn't really resist.

To begin this review, let's discuss Anya. I enjoyed her as a character. She had personality, she was driven. Her motives and morals were clear. She wanted to save her people. She wanted to stop the Kurah's plans. At the same time, she was dealing with doubts about whether she could do what needed to be done. She wasn't always sure the path she was taking was the right one. Mostly, however, I was happy that she was a dynamic character, and not the archetypal "strong female character" that can sometimes fall flat on the page. Anya was a character the reader could connect with.

There were many aspects of this novel that I enjoyed. One of the aspects I found the most interesting was Beynon's use of deities from more than one culture. Rather than only having gods from the Greek pantheon, or only Norse god, etc, there's a variety of gods mentioned. The main gods we see are Danu, a Celtic goddess, Pan, from Greek mythology, and Cernubus, the titular scarred god, although I'm not sure what pantheon he was part of. There are also illusions to gods and myths that aren't named but the average person would recognize. The story gives off the feel that, for example Greek myths are true, but Celtic myths are equally true without the two mythologies contradicting each other.

Another thing I enjoyed was Anya's personal journey and how it pans out. Anya isn't explicitly a "chosen one"; she's capable of defeating the scarred god, but at no point does the narrative make it seem like she's the only person capable of doing that. Her training, at the hands of her warrior grandmother, has given her an edge, but she's the heroine as a result of circumstance, not destiny. Anya and her connection to Vedic, the protector of the woods, is another noteworthy aspect of the story. Vedic isn't helping Anya for completely altrustic reasons, and while I enjoy stories where people work together for the "greater good", I also like characters who are reluctant heroes or mentors.

One of the best aspects of the novel, from a writing standpoint, is the way it avoids certain tropes. There were points in the story where I thought "okay, this is when [insert fantasy trope here] is going to happen". Sometimes the plot went exactly how I imagined, other times it surprised me. I like being surprised narratively.

While I enjoyed the story overall, there are a few critiques I need to share.Most of my criticism comes from a world-building or clarity perspective. There are a few thing within the world of the novel that aren't explained as well as they could be. Certain terms, how one group related to another and the like.  There were a few times where a specific term or title was used and I needed to stop and remember what it meant in this world. The phrase that often gets thrown around is "show, don't tell" which I feel is a bit vague. "Show, don't tell" is about balancing those two acts, at least to me. Somethings can be shown, others may need be told to the reader. Beynon doesn't quite achieve the right balance in my opinion, with the things being shown not quite giving the reader enough information to fill in the blanks. While I mention the author didn't explain enough, I'd like to be clear that I prefer his style as opposed to having everything explained as exposition-as-dialogue or there being page after page of explanations without context.

I should note that certain passages of the novel, which are depicted as dreams Anya is having, are intentionally confusing. They relate to a big plot point, so I won't explain too much about them, but I wanted to acknowledge that there's a purpose behind those passages being confusing or hard to follow with the rest of the story. I'll freely admit that I didn't think that that particular plot point was going to have the revelation that it did. I thought the reveal was going in a different direction entirely.

The Scarred God is a good book. It's entertaining. I enjoyed what I saw of the world and would be happy if the author wrote another story in this universe. Yet, when I reached the end, I felt like something was missing. The resolution was satisfying, but it felt like the end wasn't quite complete or was maybe a little rushed. Some of this could easily be having plot elements unresolved for a second book, in which case that makes sense.

Rating: 3.9 stars

Blogtober Day 11: Books I Meant to Read, But Didn't

Has there ever been a book that you meant to read, but you just didn't? Everyone kept telling you to read the book, the premise sounded interesting, and then you just didn't read the book. Maybe you started it, but found you couldn't finish it. Maybe you didn't get a chance to read it because you outgrew the genre. I have quite a few books like that. Today, I'd like to talk about them.

The Divergent Series

Let's start off with an easy one. In a post-Hunger Games world, I feel like plenty of readers were looking for more dystopian YA. Many gravatated towards Divergent by Veronica Roth. It seemed to hit many of the same beats as The Hunger Games while at the same time, not being too similar. Many websites and blogs suggested the series for fans of The Hunger Games. Yet, I wasn't able to get past the first few chapters. It felt like a story I'd read before and nothing stood out to me. I stopped reading and decided maybe I should give myself some time, reading something a little different and try again later. By the time the series was finished, and I considered going back to give the series a second chance, I realized I was over YA dystopia.

The Sun is Also A Star

I wanted to read this book. I still want to read it. I own it, it's on my bookshelf, waiting to be read. Yet, for some reason, every time I finish one book and try to decide on the next thing to read, The Sun is Also A Star gets glossed over. I can't think of an exact reason why I keep choosing other books over it, but hopefully one day, I can cross it off of my TBR list.

The Perks of Being A Wallflower

This is an interesting one. A friend recommended this book to me before the movie was made. She said I'd enjoy it, knowing I was a fan of the genre. Then, the film came out. The film came out, teens on the Internet gravitated towards it and certain aspects of the plot were glossed over or became cringe-worthy. I realized I didn't want to read the book any longer, since I already knew major aspects of the story and didn't want to read a story with those themes.

Me Before You

When I heard this book was going to become a movie, I thought to myself "maybe I should read that." Then, I started seeing trailers for it and I realized the book wasn't about quite what I thought. Or, I guess it would be more accurate to say, assuming the movie was marketed correctly, it didn't have the tone I thought it would. After seeing more trailers, I realized the story just wasn't for me.

The Mortal Instruments series

I'm not the biggest fan of paranormal romance/urban fantasy, but I was willing to give these books a shot when the first one came out. Then, I went through my  "I'm different from other girls, I don't read the dumb books that they read" phase and decided to forego reading them based on that. I completely forgot about the series until ABC Family/Freeform created the television series. I started the first one and couldn't get very far, because the author's writing style wasn't something I liked or could even tolerate. So, I stopped reading before I got too far in. The television series isn't bad, all things considered.

Those are some books I meant to read, but didn't. Are there any books like that in your life?

Blogtober Day 10: Characters with bad luck

Ever notice how often luck comes into play in stories? It's rarely ever commented upon, but in traditional literature, films and television, the protagonist usually has good luck. They reached their destination, or complete their journey relatively unscathed. They usually end up finding a mysterious stranger with all of the answers at the right time, or in the case of TV or film, they find a helpful newspaper or turn in the TV and see a news report related to the exact thing they're after. Some characters have all of the luck.

Others do not and they're on this list. Aside from Halloween, the most superstitions seem to revolve around Friday the 13th. Since this year, October 13th isn't a Friday, I've decided to discuss unlucky characters today instead.




Odysseus from The Odyssey

Odysseus is known for two things. One is that he came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. The second, and more well-known, achievement of his was that it took him an obscenely long time to return home after the Trojan War. The Trojan War ended and it took him 10 years to get home. The man suffered way more crap than anyone could've or should've been forced to endure. He dealt with cyclopses, giants, witches, siren, and multiple shipwrecks, just to name a few obstacles. Yes, he brought some of that on himself by angering Poseidon,  but he still had to go through way more trials and tribulations than was necessary. I'm pretty sure Odysseus earns the gold medal for "Most Unlucky Protagonist"



Sansa Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire

I could put any of the Starks on this list and it would fit, but I feel like Sansa deserves the title more than the others. From the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire, it seems like the universe has it out for the Starks, but it seems to hate Sansa the most. Her father is killed, her family is broken apart, she's held captive by her father's killers. The rest of her family is missing, dies or is reported to have died. She's abused by her fiance, before getting cast aside and betrothed to a series of men, each worse than the last. Sansa has to deal with way too much, and all because of a mistake she made as a child and the machinations of others.



Winston, Nineteen Eighty-four

Winston lives in a dystopia, and he seems to be aware of it. Yet, despite his family all disappearing, having thoughts counter to what the Party tells him is true, and living in an actual dystopia, he's surprisingly optimistic. He believes one day, the Party and Big Brother will be overthrown and something better will replace it. And in return for hoping there will be a better world, Winston is tortured, forced to betray his lover and then released, knowing soon, the Party will kill him.



Primrose Everdeen, The Hunger Games

I know Katniss seems like a more likely choice, but hear me out. Prim's name gets called at the Reaping, and Katniss volunteers. Some would say that makes Prim lucky, but now she needs to worry about her sister possibly dying in her place. Then, her sister becomes a symbol for the revolution, leading to an attack on, and the destruction of, District 12 which means Prim is forced out of the only home she's ever known. Thrust into the rebellion without much of a choice, Prim becomes a nurse and while helping the injured during the final assault on the Capitol, she's killed in an explosion. Katniss had some bad luck, but she played more of an active part in her fate than Prim did.



The Baudelaire Children, A Series of Unfortunate Events

Violet, Klaus and Sunny go from one terrible situation to another, chased all the while by Count Olaf, in the series. Their parents die in a fire, they are sent to live with Olaf, but even after they get away from him, he continues to pursue them. From one bad living situation to another, these kids can't seem to catch a break.



Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Arthur Dent just wanted to prevent his house from getting bulldozed. Instead, the entire planet Earth gets destroyed, leaving him as one of the last humans in the universe. He then spends several years flying around the universe, never fully understanding what's going on or why his planet was destroyed. Other characters I mention had bad luck, but they didn't lose their whole planet in the process. 

Where the Crawdads Sing

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Where the Crawdads Sing is a 2018 novel by Delia Owens. It was published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. It’s topped The New York Times Fiction Best Seller list for 20 non-consecutive weeks in 2019. The book was selected for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club within two months of being published and Barnes & Noble named it one of the best books of 2018. It can be purchased here from Bookshop.org or here from Amazon.

The novel follows the life of Kya Clark, the so-called “Marsh Girl” who’s become a local legend in the town of Barkley Cove, North Carolina. Intelligent and sensitive, she’s lived most of her life alone in the marsh, mostly isolated from people and connecting with nature instead. In 1969, former football star Chase Andrews is discovered dead and the locals immediately being to suspect Kya.

The novel unfolds in two timelines. One depicts Kya’s life following her mother abandoning the family and describes her childhood and young adulthood growing up alone in the marshes. The second timeline explores the investigation of Chase’s death and the trial that follows. While the second timeline has some great moments, its in telling the story of Kya’s upbringing where Owens’ talent shines. She doesn’t simply tell the reader about the marshes, but transports them there. The rich imagery creates a vivid picture of a setting most readers would never witness personally, but somehow it feels familiar. I often find it difficult to full immerse myself in the setting of a book easily, but Where the Crawdads Sing is a rare exception. I found myself wanting to read more about the beautiful, yet sometimes eerie, land.

While the descriptions of the marsh, and the wildlife within it, are spectacular, they pale in comparison to how Kya is written. When I first picked up the book, I thought the premise would be too sad for me. Kya is a child when she is left pretty much on her own, save an alcoholic and often absent father. Others might use such a situation to tell a depressing story about what the loss of human connection can do to one’s mind. Owens is not others, though. While Kya is very obviously alone, I rarely felt a hopeless sense of loneliness. She is isolated from the town, but thanks to a handful of people, she’s not completely alone. Even when she was at her lowest, there was never a feeling of desperation or despair.

While many in town look down on the “marsh people” and sneer at the “Marsh Girl”, Kya is one of the most intelligent characters portrayed. She may have only gone to school for one day, but she knows and understands the animals and plants in the marsh better than anyone else. Kya is reclusive, yes, but its not entirely by choice. She was abandoned by her parents, her siblings, the school system, and a town that made no attempt to aid her, but the marsh, nature itself, did not. Her isolation might’ve been forced at first, but it becomes clear later on that she remains in the marsh by choice.

The book is touted as being somewhat of a murder mystery, but that isn’t the focus on much of the plot. The story centers around Kya and her coming of age in this strange situation. It’s Kya’s story, the murder investigation just happens to tie into that story. The bigger story is about survival and the resilience necessary to survive despite hard circumstances and seemingly no chance of the situation improving. As I mentioned earlier, this story has sad moments, but thanks to Owens’ writing and a well-crafted plot, it isn’t a sad story.

Now, its time to discuss a few tiny complaints I have. They are minor, but in order for this to be a balanced review, I can’t only talk about the positive aspects of Where the Crawdads Sing. The story does drag a little bit in certain parts, especially when Kya’s journey first begins. The prose is still praise-worthy, but some of the passages describing the world of the marsh are a little longer than they need to be. The same goes for different scenes of Kya trying, and failing, to make food the way her mother used to. The biggest letdown for me is how the murder investigation, and subsequent trial, is resolved. It wasn’t badly written, it wasn’t that it didn’t make sense, it was just kinda boring. The courtroom drama seemed as odds with the world the rest of the book created and felt tacked on. The ending was somewhat middling as well. It was a natural, but sadly boring, way to end Kya’s story. Rather than give the reader an ambiguous ending, Owens went for a finite ending, which doesn’t feel quite right for a character as independent and free-spirited as Kya.

 Where the Crawdads Sing is one of the best novels I’ve read this year. It’s a story about survival, love, desperation and hope. It’s a fantastic coming-of-age story that also delves into deeper themes about prejudice, humanity and our connection to nature. I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone slightly intrigued by its premise.

Rating: 4.7 stars  

Dark Places

Source: Barnes & Noble

Dark Places is a 2009 thriller by Gillian Flynn, whose other works are Sharp Objects and Gone Girl. It was published by Shaye Areheart Books. It was listed on the New York Times Best Seller List for fiction within a month of its publication date. The New Yorker named it one of the best books of 2009. Roughly six years later, a move adaptation starring Charlize Theron was released.

The summary of the book is as follows: Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in the “The Satan Sacrifice” of Kinnnakee, Kansas. She survived, and later testified that her brother Ben was responsible. Twenty-five years after the murders, a group of true-crime fans contacts Libby and invites her to meet with them so they can question her for details. Many don’t believe Ben was the murderer and are searching for evidence that will clear his name. Libby, meanwhile, has fallen on hard times and hopes to make some quick cash off of the family tragedy. She makes a deal with the club, she’ll start looking for answers and report what she finds to them, for a fee. As her search takes her around the Midwest, some painful truths resurface and she finds herself once again on the run from a killer.

The narrative unfolds in two timelines. One timeline shows Libby’s journey in the present, digging into the truth of what happened that night and reconnecting with some of the others who may have hidden the truth years earlier. The other timeline is the story of what happened in the past, depicting the 24-hour period leading up to the murders. The perspective of the “past” chapters shifts between Libby’s mother Patty and her brother Ben. Patty’s chapters show the desperate situation the family was in financially before the murders and her desire to simply help her family. Ben’s POV chapters add dimension to his character and explain a few of the decisions he makes that are pivotal to the mystery at the center of the story.

While having a story, more specifically a mystery, being told in two timelines can be beneficial, I don’t think that style works as well as it could have in Dark Places. Given that the reader already knows what happens in January of 1985, there’s plenty of detail that could be omitted without effecting the plot. We already know Patty and two of her children are killed. We know Ben is arrested for the killing. Having two timelines is a solid tactic for introducing red herrings or revealing previously unknown facts, without having an exposition dump, but it isn’t used very effectively here. There is an entire subplot that unfolded in 1985, which revolves around 15-year-old Ben being accused of a crime, that serves as a rather heavy-handed red herring and I would say it has no real impact on the story as a whole if it didn’t further Patty’s narrative about trying to keep the family farm together. There was potential in Dark Places, but that potential wasn’t fully realized.

The novel is well-written, Flynn’s prose is fantastic as it is in all of her works. She does an excellent job of making the reader sympathize with, or in the very least like, characters that shouldn’t be likeable. Ben allegedly killed his family. Libby is using, and has used, the deaths of her mother and sisters to make money. There is a club called The Kill Club that’s fascinated by true crime to the point that not only do they decide to investigate murders for themselves, but they contact survivors and relatives of the victims, which is bound to reopen old, and painful, wounds. None of these characters should make you want this novel to have a fulfilling conclusion, an intriguing answer to the mystery, but thanks to Flynn’s writing chops, you do.

Let’s discuss the conclusion for a moment. As the novel’s premise suggests, and some earlier parts of this review imply, Ben was not the person who killed his mother and sisters. I know that is a spoiler, but it’s a spoiler that shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. Television, films and literature have all taught us by now that if someone’s looking into a case after its been solved, the police caught the wrong person. The reveal of Patty’s real killer’s identity is underwhelming in my opinion. It isn’t an out-of-nowhere reveal, but there also aren’t quite enough clues sprinkled through out that tease or foreshadow the ending. In fact, the few clues that exist led me to a much different, and darker conclusion. Something that really bothered me about the truth of what happened didn’t relate to Patty’s death, but the deaths of the two daughters. The motive behind Patty’s death is clear in hindsight, and teased beforehand. The same isn’t true regarding the two daughters, Michelle and Debby. They die for different, and much worse reasons. My biggest criticism about the revelation, however, lies in how it happens as an act of chance. A character says something, reveals information they shouldn’t know, and that’s how the murder is solved. After reading 316 pages of what happened right leading up to the murders, and Libby trying to solve the murders, the whodunit is revealed when a character lets the wrong thing slip out. It’s not a bad way to have the revelation happen, it just doesn’t fit with this story.

Despite how critical I may seem, I enjoyed Dark Places. It was a well-written, intriguing story. Not my favorite of Flynn’s but that’s in no way a point against it. Dark Places, in my mind, is at a disadvantage, because I will compare every novel of Flynn’s against Gone Girl, and this novel, unfortunately, doesn’t stack up quite as well. It’s a good book, but one I found to be a little boring. It’s a quick read, and perfect for a day sitting on the beach or to enjoy on a plane or train. I would definitely read it again.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Wife Between Us

Source: Barnes & Noble

The Wife Between Us is a 2018 thriller written by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. It was published by Pan Macmillian. The New York Time Book Review called it “a fiendishly smart cat-and-mouse thriller”, Glamour’s review stated “Buckle up, because you won’t be able to put this one down” and Publishers Weekly referred to it as “jaw dropping. Unforgettable. Shocking”.

A one-sentence description of the plot is that wealthy man’s jealous ex-wife becomes obsessed with her replacement, a younger, more beautiful woman he’s about to marry. Many other reviews cite a very compelling description from the book itself:

“When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.

You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.

You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love. 

You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.

Assume nothing.”

While I won’t begrudge anyone’s opinion, I can’t say I fully agree with the reviews I’ve mentioned above. The narrative is captivating at first. Unfolding through alternating POVs between Vanessa, Richard’s ex-wife, and Nellie, his young fiancé, the first half of the novel reads very well. The suspense builds as Vanessa gets more desperate and makes her way closer to confronting Richard’s new fiancé. Nellie’s fear about a woman who can’t seem to leave her alone, or move on with her life is palpable. The tension continues to build and build to the point where you wonder exactly what will happen when Nellie and Vanessa cross paths.

Then, the twist happens. Halfway through the narrative, a first twist is revealed. It shifts the narrative so that the reader is forced to reevaluate everything occurs up to that point. Unfortunately, the first twist is where the story falls apart. All of the tension built up to by that point washes away and the novel becomes a fairly adequate, by-the-numbers, drama. I would barely call it a thriller since, after that first twist, there’s very little suspense going on. More twists follow, each meaning less and less in terms of the narrative.

The novel is over four hundred pages, but there’s a lot of nothing that happens. Some of the filler in the story, or sidebars to explain certain details, are probably meant to make later twists mean more, or ramp up tension fail to do so. The story doesn’t need to go from one massively important scene or revelation to another, but way too much of the second half of the book is taken up by Vanessa reflecting on “what went wrong” with her marriage, which isn’t hard to figure out.

The novel is very trope heavy. Vanessa is a divorcee living a sad existence after her marriage falls apart. As soon as the divorce happens, her whole life loses meaning and she winds up living with her aunt and working in retail. Nellie is a naïve girl who’s caught up in this whirlwind romance with a successful businessman who gives her everything she could ever want. Richard is suave, powerful and lures Nellie in, despite hiding a secret. My biggest complaint when it comes to tropes is in Vanessa’s behavior towards Richard’s new fiancé. Her actions depict her as a crazy ex-wife which makes it even harder for her to pull off the one thing she’s trying to do. I’m really tired of reading the crazy ex-wife trope or the use of mental illness (its implied by Richard that Vanessa’s mentally ill because her mother was) as a plot device to explain why a character shouldn’t be trusted.

I think my main issue with this novel is how much hype surrounded it. The book was recommended to me by a coworker who claimed I’d enjoy it if I enjoyed Gone Girl. More than one book this year has been pitched to me in the same manner. I heard the same sales pitch last year about a number of books. I feel like the phrase “the next Gone Girl” is thrown around too liberally. Gone Girl was a fantastic thriller. Far too many subpar thrillers published in the following years are equated to it, and I for one think the comparison does an injustice to Gillian Flynn’s work. By saying The Wife Between Us is on the same level, I began reading with very high expectations, and was ultimately disappointed by the story I wound up reading.

The Wife Between Us is a good book, it isn’t fantastic and the narrative treats the plot twists like they are smarter than they really are. If someone asked me “is this book good”, I’d say yes. If I was asked “would you recommend it”, I might say yes, depending on my mood.

Rating: 3 stars.

Behind Closed Doors

Source: Amazon

Behind Closed Doors is a 2016 novel by B.A. Paris. It was published by St. Martin’s Griffin and was both a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. According to the description, it is a “psychological thriller you can’t miss!”

The novel focuses on Grace and Jack Angel. He’s a well-respected attorney focusing on domestic violence victims, while she’s a homemaker. From the outside they seem to have it all. As a tagline on the cover asks however, is this the perfect marriage or the perfect lie? Obviously, with a question like that posed, the answer becomes obvious. Things with the Angels are far from perfect, Jack is not the benevolent attorney, dedicated to saving women from their abusers that he seems to be. The novel centers around Grace trying to figure out what to do about her husband and how to remove herself, and her vulnerable sister Millie, from his sphere of influence.

The narrative unfolds in two timelines: past and present. This shows how Grace meets Jack and they get together while also contrasting it with the life she’s now living. The first chapter, which depicts a dinner party the Angels are hosting, does a fantastic job of filling the reader with a sense of doom and dread. Within a few pages, Grace’s actions and behaviors reminded me of The Stepford Wives. She’s the perfect hostess, the perfect cook, dinner goes down without a single mistake or flub, but at the same time, there’s an underlying fear of what would happen if dinner wasn’t perfect, if she wasn’t the charming hostess. I don’t like using other works to describe a feeling I get, but Stepford Wife was the only way I could describe it. Any work that invokes that comparison instantly gives the impression that either something is about to go horribly wrong, or it already has.

While the beginning creates a sense of dread, once it becomes clear the secret that’s being kept, the rest of the suspense drops off until the climax of the story. The tension in the first few chapters isn’t carried forward as effectively as I would’ve liked. Grace’s desperation is well-crafted and as the story progresses, the feeling of helplessness convinces the reader, or at least this reader, that she might not be able to get away. I’m not sure if I would quite qualify it as a thriller, mostly because there isn’t enough suspense. The actions of Grace and Jack propel the story forward, as opposed to a building up of tension.

As I alluded to earlier, and as the novel makes clear, Jack is hiding a huge secret. I will admit that the secret Jack hides and his motives aren’t quite what I predicted they might be when I read the synopsis of the book, I didn’t completely miss the mark. I went into the book expecting Jack’s secret to be that he’s a domestic violence attorney who, ironically, beats his wife. I expected him to be an abuser who hides behind the façade of someone advocating for abuse victims. That isn’t what his secret is, but he chose his profession deliberately and it isn’t to help others. Another thing I did not expect was the importance Millie, Grace’s 17-year-old sister with Down Syndrome, played in the story. She ended up being a much more important character in the conflict than I anticipated. Millie is smart, she’s resourceful and, despite her dislike of George Clooney, which has a purpose in the story, she’s a good character. Behind Closed Doors is one of the few books have read that has characters with Down Syndrome or another developmental disability that are well-written and multifaceted.

Now, it’s time to discuss some parts and elements that I wasn’t a fan of. There are two chief complaints that I haven’t touched upon yet. One is relatively minor, another related to a huge aspect of the story and plot. My minor complaint is about clichés in this type of work. It’s a psychological drama about the relationship between two people. As an easy way to show that Jack is a psychopath, and how psychopathic he is, he gets Grace a puppy and later kills it. This is the fourth book I’ve read this year where the first sign that the abusive or psychotic husband is abusive or psychotic is that he kills the dog. It does prove Jack’s a monster, but there were plenty of other, more creative, less obvious ways, to show that. Now, to my main complaint, Jack is apparently a supergenius, or psychic. By the time Grace learns the truth about him, he’s already planned for any and every possible contingency to make sure she can’t leave. Even events that are seemingly out of his control, he’s accounted for. The narrative shows only Grace’s perspective, so some aspects might be amplified for dramatic effect because she’s so scared, but his ability to predict any and everything that could happen gets a little annoying. Another thing I found incredibly frustrating is the fact that no one questions his behavior about certain things. No one apparently finds it weird that Grace can’t even go to the bathroom in a restaurant unless he waits outside the door for her. Not every character dismisses it, but far too many chalk it up to them being “so in love”. That behavior, and everyone’s dismissal of it, is part of why Grace is so desperate but it isn’t realistic in the way some of his other behavior is.

The central story is compelling. The twists and turns the story takes are also worth complimenting. Jack is a one-dimensional evil man, but that’s all he needs to be. Grace and Millie are both well-rounded and while I didn’t have a great opinion of Grace at first, as the story unfolds, her behavior had me saying “you’re an idiot, just leave” less and understanding her actions more. Behind Closed Doors is a great book, it’s not a fantastic one. I would recommend it but I don’t see myself gushing about it or insisting that everyone I know read it immediately.

Rating: 3.3 stars

One of Us is Lying

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One of Us is Lying is a young adult novel by Karen M. McManus. It was published in 2017 by Random House. Everyone I know who has read it describes the premise as “The Breakfast Club” meets “Pretty Little Liars” which is a pretty on the nose depiction. The book can be purchased here from Bookshop.org.

The non-spoiler-y summary is as follows: On a Monday afternoon, five students, a brain, a beauty, a criminal, an athlete and an outcast, walk into detention. An hour later, only four walk out. Simon, the outcast and the creator of a gossip app about the school, dies during detention. It’s soon revealed that his death was no accident. The four students in detention with him are the prime suspects and everyone has a motive. More people wanted Simon gone than didn’t.

What unfolds is a complex murder-mystery taking place in a modern high school. One of the strongest points of the book, and the most appealing, is this backdrop of a suburban high school. Unlike traditional mystery novels, a la Sherlock Holmes, the investigation takes place in our time. Simon’s death gains national attention and the investigation unfolds surrounded by, and impacted by, the 24-hour news cycle and the current trend to sensationalize everything. It’s on national news, a 48 Hours-like television program does a piece on the murder while its being investigated. The plot isn’t just impacted by news sources; there’s the added perspective of social media and the role it plays in hew news spreads and how stories are covered. It becomes clear, with some minor characters, that the death doesn’t matter much to them, but the attention the story gains is what they care about.

The novel unfolds through alternating point-of-view segments of the four suspects: Bronwyn (the brain), Addy (the beauty), Nate (the criminal) and Cooper (the athlete). While I’m not always a fan of narratives with alternating POVs, it works extremely well here because it gives the reader a chance to see the murder, and its aftermath, from more than one perspective. Not only does this provide possible motives for every character, but it also allows the reader to understand why a particular character wouldn’t have killed Simon. No one character is presented as being squeaky clean or obviously guilty. While the characters are all archetypes common in media aimed at teenagers, they aren’t one-dimensional, which is refreshing for the reader and adds depth to the story.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is how the characters’ lives are changed by this common event. Others become immediately suspicious of them, but that’s not the only outcome of Simon’s death. The murder, the investigation, the press coverage, the four students trying to solve what happened leads to each individual coming to some kind of realization, whether its about self-acceptance or getting a toxic person out of their life. The murder investigation is obviously a huge plotpoint, and their lives may never be the same, but smaller problems arise, less important details come to life. Despite the fact that they’re all suspects, and that each character only knows their truth about what happened, they are brought closer together by this event and try to work together to determine what exactly happened.

Now, let’s discuss the plot without spoiling the ending. I enjoyed the death itself, mostly because it posed an interesting mystery. Simon doesn’t get shot or stabbed. There isn’t a power outage and when the lights turn back on, he’s dead on the floor. He dies, everyone in the room sees it, but no one’s able to figure out what happened. How he died, and how the killer is able to kill him, is just as compelling as trying to figure out who did it. The revelation of how Simon died, and who killed him, is equally compelling, and unlike some novels, the answer doesn’t come out of nowhere, nor does there need to be an extensive amount of exposition given, for it to make sense. It also isn’t glaringly obvious up front who’s involved with what happened.

While I find McManus’s novel great overall, I do have some minor complaints. A few of the secrets the main four characters want to keep hidden are a bit cliché or overdramatized. Some of that could be chalked up to teenagers having heightened emotions, and everything feeling like a huge deal in high school. Simon, our murder victim, has plenty of enemies and people who aren’t sad to see him die which feels a little bit of a cop-out, but that could just be me. There were a few scenes in the book where a character’s actions seemed a bit over the top or their words didn’t sound like something a normal person would say. Again, this is just my opinion but those scenes kind of took me out of the story a little bit. I found the treatment of one character after her secret gets out, because of course the secrets are revealed, was a little heavy-handed but I’m also picky about the specific topic it covered. My dislikes are mostly related to small details, and not major aspects to the story.

Rating: 4 stars

The Power

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What would happen if, one day, women developed the ability to emit electricity from their fingertips? How would politics and society change as a result of women gaining a power over men? What happens when the powerful find themselves suddenly powerless, and women become the physically dominant gender? These questions rest at the center of The Power by Naomi Alderman. Spoiler alert- the answer isn’t the utopia we’d all like to believe would occur. The novel can be purchased here from Bookshop.org.

The Power is written in a “book within a book” format. It’s framed as a historical novel written by Neil Adam Armon (an anagram of Naomi Alderman’s own name) which he’s sent to a friend to read and review. Having been written 5,000 years after an event called the Cataclysm, it chronicles what happens in the ten years before the Cataclysm that led to the event and society being rebuilt as a matriarchy after the dust settled.

One day, women and post-pubescent girls across the globe develop the ability to electrically shock others with a simple touch, to the extent of being able to electrocute a person if desired. What starts out as a rare ability soon develops into nearly all women having the power. With women now having a power, things soon transition into having most of the power, and the changes that comes with it. Men are no longer the gender to be most feared. Some men aren’t willing to relinquish power and some women feel like comeuppance is in order.

The Power’s concept I found fascinating when it was first suggested to me. Rather than a story about a world without men or a world where humanity was always a matriarchal society, it depicts how modern society would react to a change from patriarchy to matriarchy. It’s also a novel that becomes more difficult to read as things escalate. When the women’s power first becomes known, changes are minimal, and familiar to many female readers. Boys and men are advised not to travel alone or at night. They learn to become much more aware of their surroundings. Things most women today take as common sense. As things progress, tensions escalate and some go overboard now that they have power. As one very poignant line in the book states:

It doesn’t matter that she shouldn’t, that she never would. What matters is that she could, if she wanted.

Alderman depicts, in a stark lighting, why a woman-run world would not and could not be the utopia others might argue it would be, and does so realistically. Men wouldn’t willingly give up power, especially in less developed parts of the world. Women who have suffered all their lives at men’s hands, likewise, wouldn’t gain superiority over them and not attempt to get revenge. Men made women suffer, and now women will make men suffer. It shows that it isn’t sex that makes the powerful do terrible things, it’s the power itself. Alderman weaves a descriptive, even at times horrifying, narrative showing this transition, and the extremes both sides will go to for their agenda.

The aspect of this work I liked most was the way the story unfolds. It begins ten years before the Cataclysm, when the power is first discovered, and each section of the book brings the reader closer and closer to the day the Cataclysm takes place and reveals how this world-ending event came to be. The progression of these events is told from multiple perspectives throughout the book:

• Allie- A troubled teen who discovers her power and, following a confrontation with her abusive foster father, runs away to convent. She becomes a religious figure known as Mother Eve, whose significance becomes amplified in the world post-Cataclysm
• Roxy- One of the first women to discover her power. She attempts to use it to save her mother, unsuccessfully and strives to get revenge. She crosses paths with Mother Eve while trying to grow her power. She’s shown to be the physically strongest wielder of the power, wile Mother Eve is the most skilled at using it.
• Margot- An American politician who was often overlooked by her male colleagues. She advocates for girls to be trained on using their powers. Men fear the training camps she establishes are precursors to creating a militarized force of female soldiers. Her daughter, Jocelyn, develops the power early and struggles to control it.
• Tunde- The only male POV character in the novel-within-a-novel. He is the first person to capture a video of the women’s newfound power. This leads to him becoming a freelance journalist and traversing the globe to report on uprisings as women in male-dominated countries begin uprisings.

These characters’ stories all converge in Moldova just before the Cataclysm. Explaining why and how each character ends up there would spoil significant elements of the individual stories and the narrative as a whole. My favorite thing about these characters is that no one character is the “hero”. Every character exists in the grey area and while some began with good intentions, those get warped.

The Cataclysm isn’t shown, nor its immediate aftermath. The novel ends with Neil, the fictitious writer 5,000 years post-Cataclysm, and Naomi corresponding back and forth about his novel. This is the only glimpse we get of the world after the Cataclysm, and the questions that are brought up sound somewhat familiar.

How much stock should be put in history books about what happened centuries ago? How much information was lost because of personal biases? To what extent should biology define us? Lastly, is the power structure we occupy and the society we live in “natural”? Are we capable of better? Do we simply choose not to be better?

Rating: 4.5 stars

In A Dark, Dark Wood

“In a dark, dark wood, there was a dark, dark house. And in the dark, dark house, there was a dark, dark room.” This theme is common among most horror and thriller stories going back generations. We are told from an early age that the woods and dark places are scary and that we should avoid them. A remote house in the middle of dense woods is the setting for In A Dark, Dark Wood. In A Dark, Dark Wood is a 2015 thriller/mystery novel written by Ruth Ware. It quickly became a New York Times bestseller and was named one of the best books of the year by NPR.

Source: Simon & Schuster

The premise of the book is this: a reclusive writer names Leonora, Nora to her friends, is invited to a hen do, or as its known in the US a bachelorette party, by her friend Clare. Given that she hasn’t seen Clare in ten years, she’s shocked and a little confused that she’s been invited. She somewhat reluctantly agrees to attend. The event is being held at a remote house in the woods owned by a relative of one of the bridesmaids.  As the weekend progresses, it soon becomes clear that not everything is as it seems and the group may not be alone in the woods. Someone may not make it out of the woods alive.

The story is very much told in two parts. There are the events of the bachelorette party and the events that take place after. Someone dies and the “after” storyline depicts the police trying to determine what exactly happened, along with the narrator. The transition back and forth can be a little jarring, but it prevents the reader from learning too much information at any one time.

The writing is pretty good with Ware doing a noteworthy job building suspense as time goes on. The book isn’t badly written, the plot makes sense, and the reveal doesn’t come out of nowhere. If anything, the opposite is true. My criticism comes from two fronts. Predictability and a reliance on convenience.

First, predictability. I was able to accurately guess who the killer was early on. Most of the characters are archetypes that serve a single purpose. It’s clear, once the characters are gathered together, who the killer is and who the "fake-out" murderer is. The character that’s set-up to seem like the killer is painted early on as a nervous wreck, so it becomes clear that person isn’t the killer, due to how obvious it seems. The only thing that I didn’t predict was a detail about Nora’s backstory that is only terribly important as it relates to the killer’s motive. Nora’s backstory is focused on a little too much and, in the end, it exists to make the motive seem more legitimate. There’s nothing wrong with a story being predictable, I was just hoping for more.

The plot relies a lot on convenience. Lenora is in a car accident after the murder, which means she doesn’t remember what happened. The unreliable narrator angle is why the dual storylines work, but the decision to have an unreliable narrator, and the reason why she’s unreliable, is still incredibly convenient. The way the victim ends up at the house is based entirely on convenience. The murder was planned, but how it happened cycles back to one or two very specific events that could've gone differently, preventing the murder altogether. Patterns of behavior are ignored until they suddenly become relevant when the plot needs them to. I understand the need for convenience and red herrings, but there comes a point where the story is too reliant on coincidence.

I read this book on the beach and I liked it, but I wasn’t thrilled by it. It didn’t blow my mind like many others have. I suppose my biggest gripe with it is that there was potential for a compelling story, but it never manifested. The setting in the middle of the woods never gets taken full advantage of. I picked up the book expecting a supernatural thriller or even just a creepy thriller. I didn’t get that. Instead, it was a fairly by-the-numbers murder mystery without that much actual mystery.

Overall rating: 2.5 stars