The Dark Place / Britney S. Lewis / Book Review

THE DARK PLACE

Memento mori. Remember you will die.

There's one night that Hylee Williams will never forget: the night her childhood home was invaded. The night of the gunshot. The night her brother vanished, never to be seen again. Losing a brother is hard enough. It's harder when you have to live that night again and again and again.

It's not like Hylee chose to disappear. It's not like she chose to go to... that place. It's not like she chose to return to that night. She just vanished. And when she reappeared, that night was different, twisted and dark and rotten.

However she did it, Hylee knows this might be the key to unravelling what happened to her brother. But just as she can't control vanishing, she can't make herself stay in the other place either. Until she meets Eilam. Until she disappears right in front of him and he doesn't seem surprised in the least. Until he has answers, and he's willing to help. 

THOUGHTS

There's just something about this book that didn't quite click for me. This book feels a touch more introspective than I think it means to be. That introspection doesn't quite balance with the creepy factor. The writing is most certainly evocative, but it doesn't hit the points that I wanted it to.

PROS

Real Dark Place	I've read a lot of bait-and-switch dark places recently. If you're calling something the "dark place," I'm ready for rot, ruin, and a touch of otherworldly fear (perhaps in another dimension, a shadow dimension). And unlike her contemporaries, Britney S. Lewis definitely provides that. The Upside Down is real, and it definitely pulls on Stranger Things and Coraline vibes. It's unsettling with its creeping plants and twisted reality. Lewis's "dark place" is a manifestation of processing trauma, and it is just as traumatic as the trauma itself.
Creepy	The one thing Lewis absolutely gets right here is the creepiness factor. She really nails that creepy vibe. In that other place, Hylee's childhood home is being overwhelmed by creeping vines... and so is her family. Blooming never felt so ominous. This book is full of a sense of impending doom. No notes.
Missouri Rep	It's always great to read a book not set in NYC or LA, especially when place really does figure into the story itself. Missouri might be a flyover state, but that doesn't mean life doesn't happen there. This book gives Kansas City some love, and it gives small town Missouri some attention, too. And that representation is nice.

CONS

I had a general sense of confusion throughout this entire book, and while friends will know I don't mind being confused (Gideon the Ninth, anyone?), I just never felt like I got my footing here. It felt rocky and uneven. I didn't know what rules I was playing by, and so I never really got to sink into the story and just enjoy it.	Confused
You know what's potentially the worst thing you can say about a horror story? That it's boring. The horror vibes were stellar here, but this book takes a long time to get going. It spends a lot of time digging into the psyche of the characters, not a lot of time actually developing the plot. It dragged a bit, and that's disappointing.	Bored
I found myself really sad and concerned for Hylee, and in ways I'm not entirely sure I was meant to. She's got a lot of trauma on board, and she blames herself for a lot of things. She's particularly self-deprecating, even when she's not the one in the wrong. When her friends are being objectively bad friends, she blames herself. She's had a lot of traumatic things happen in her life, and those traumas are still playing out. She's not entirely healed, of course, and so her view of herself isn't likely to be that positive. I just wish it had been clearer that she isn't to blame here. Because she isn't. Maybe she's not the most stellar friend, but her friends aren't, either. And it just felt like Hylee was being blamed for far too many things.	Self-Deprecating

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
6/10

Fans of Liselle Sambury's Delicious Monsters will appreciate this new, damaged girl riding out her family's trauma. Those who enjoyed Courtney Gould's Where Echoes Die will like the unsetting, strange phenomena happening in this book..

Details Publisher: Disney Hyperion Date: August 8, 2023 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.