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A review by literarynightowl
Darling by Mercedes M. Yardley
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
2.0
Cherry Larouche escaped her abusive mother and claustrophobic hometown of Darling, Louisiana with her high school sweetheart and to be ex when she was 16. Now years later she and her two children Jonah and Daisy are forced to return to her childhood home after her mother's death, where she imagines whispers in the walls and hears sinister skittering across the roof at night. While being made to face the monsters of her past, she must also face a new monster haunting the town. Children are being found murdered by a beast known as the "Handsome Butcher". When Cherry's own daughter turns up missing, she must fight to find her daughter and escape from the true evil infecting the town.
Book Trigger Warnings:
-Murder
- Serial Killer
-Child Death
- The R-slur
- Physical Abuse
-Sexual Abuse
-Sexual Assault
-Incest
**I received this book for free from Netgalley for the purpose of an honest review.**
**Some spoilers**
I want to start this review by saying once I started this book I couldn't put it down until I had finished it. The story of a struggling single mother doing whatever it took to take care of her children and the southern gothic vibes the author imbued into the story pulled me in and didn't let me go. I felt Cherry's anxiety at returning to a place she tried so hard to escape along with her fear and despair when Daisy went missing.
That being said there were some aspects of the writing and plot that pulled me out of the story.
The first one-half to two-thirds of the story were well paced, with just a few sections feeling like they needed more information. The book has very short chapters (with multiple chapters being only a page long), some new chapters jump around enough where I was checking to make sure I hadn't missed pages somehow.
The sense of time is very off in this book. For the first bit after Daisy goes missing Yardley is clear that it has only been 4 days since the disappearance, but after that it gets muddled with Cherry reacting to situations in a way that makes it feel like Daisy has been gone for much longer than she has. For example, for a character who talks up and down about how much she loves her children and would do anything for them, she seems to move past Daisy's disappearance very quickly and into a love triangle with her childhood friend Runner and her brother-in-law Mordachi. Within days of her daughter being seemingly abducted by a serial killer she is falling in love, waking up next to her lover and talking about how she has fresh bread and is going to make him and Jonah French toast.
Jonah, who is disabled seems to be in the story mostly as a prop, he is used as a reassurance to Cherry that there is someone who will always love and need her when lovers abandon her. Multiple times in the story she leaves her son with strangers (one a child themselves) even though she knows her abusive ex, Jonah's father is in town and looking for them.
The incest plot point feels entirely pointless and does nothing for the story, nor is it really brought up again apart from Cherry thinking about it and doing nothing with the information.
The last 10% of the book goes from 0-100 and definitely feels rushed. The "infection" of the townsfolk by the evil of the town is shown through a couple of isolated incidents of a murder and a few fights around town. There is no explanation of what this evil is or why it infects the town. From dialogue with another character Cherry finds out a similar infection happened in the town decades earlier, but it is never explored beyond that.
All in all, even with these issues I did enjoy reading Darling, so I am giving it 3 stars out of 5. If you decide to read it, just be aware of the trigger warnings for the book as it does deal with some sensitive topics.
Book Trigger Warnings:
-Murder
- Serial Killer
-Child Death
- The R-slur
- Physical Abuse
-Sexual Abuse
-Sexual Assault
-Incest
**I received this book for free from Netgalley for the purpose of an honest review.**
**Some spoilers**
I want to start this review by saying once I started this book I couldn't put it down until I had finished it. The story of a struggling single mother doing whatever it took to take care of her children and the southern gothic vibes the author imbued into the story pulled me in and didn't let me go. I felt Cherry's anxiety at returning to a place she tried so hard to escape along with her fear and despair when Daisy went missing.
That being said there were some aspects of the writing and plot that pulled me out of the story.
The first one-half to two-thirds of the story were well paced, with just a few sections feeling like they needed more information. The book has very short chapters (with multiple chapters being only a page long), some new chapters jump around enough where I was checking to make sure I hadn't missed pages somehow.
The sense of time is very off in this book. For the first bit after Daisy goes missing Yardley is clear that it has only been 4 days since the disappearance, but after that it gets muddled with Cherry reacting to situations in a way that makes it feel like Daisy has been gone for much longer than she has. For example, for a character who talks up and down about how much she loves her children and would do anything for them, she seems to move past Daisy's disappearance very quickly and into a love triangle with her childhood friend Runner and her brother-in-law Mordachi. Within days of her daughter being seemingly abducted by a serial killer she is falling in love, waking up next to her lover and talking about how she has fresh bread and is going to make him and Jonah French toast.
Jonah, who is disabled seems to be in the story mostly as a prop, he is used as a reassurance to Cherry that there is someone who will always love and need her when lovers abandon her. Multiple times in the story she leaves her son with strangers (one a child themselves) even though she knows her abusive ex, Jonah's father is in town and looking for them.
The incest plot point feels entirely pointless and does nothing for the story, nor is it really brought up again apart from Cherry thinking about it and doing nothing with the information.
The last 10% of the book goes from 0-100 and definitely feels rushed. The "infection" of the townsfolk by the evil of the town is shown through a couple of isolated incidents of a murder and a few fights around town. There is no explanation of what this evil is or why it infects the town. From dialogue with another character Cherry finds out a similar infection happened in the town decades earlier, but it is never explored beyond that.
All in all, even with these issues I did enjoy reading Darling, so I am giving it 3 stars out of 5. If you decide to read it, just be aware of the trigger warnings for the book as it does deal with some sensitive topics.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Murder, Ableism, and Incest