Reviews

Where Darkness Blooms by Andrea Hannah

humblebee20's review against another edition

2.0

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but this book makes it so hard to care, or even remember who was who. I can tell you vaguely what each main girl is like, but please don't ask who has which mom, what any of them look like or who the boys are (I could not tell the difference between brothers, father/son, uncles). The story had a creepy premise but the only thing it does with its sunflowers is give you a hundred different ways of saying "buttery yellow". The book drags its feet the entire time and no mystery felt there. It was either too obvious or an out of nowhere twist for everything, and the book tends to lean on the former. Give me more creepiness, show me more deaths, I hated just hearing about them and nothing else. There's a good skeleton here, but the themes of generational trauma and silenced women are crushed under a whole bunch of nothing. I can not for the life of me tell you why this book was 300 pages with how little stood out. The LGBTQ romance was cute, but cute can't save fundamentally lacking everywhere else.

nissaz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

atlasrising41818's review against another edition

4.0

The plot was predictable in my opinion, but I absolutely love this kind of fast-paced horror/small-town novel. It's a fun and quick read and the supernatural aspects tied into the story well, but I wish that part was a little more fleshed out.

izzys_internet_bookshelf's review against another edition

4.0

4/5

I really enjoyed this book. The plot was so different and the town was so mysterious. I felt like the characters fell a little short though. I wish there was a little more character background and to just know the characters better.

zagsreads's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense

4.5

agenderfox's review against another edition

dark mysterious

3.75

marieintheraw's review against another edition

3.0

I need more books that give of Children of the Corn vibes. I feel this struggled with having too many perspectives, but was overall creepy enough to make up for it.

I received an ecopy of this through Netgalley; however, all opinions are my own.

mimmrqz's review

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

lumiiyowo's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i love found family this made me cry multiple times and had a cool plot + most of the cast are queer and poc

shawniebooks's review against another edition

3.0

This was a YA light horror. The sentient sunflowers were part of the spooky town that needed to be fed by female blood/death. I had trouble keeping all of the characters straight even though the audio had four different women narrating for the four sisters.