louisar 's review for:

Darkstalker by Tui T. Sutherland

3.0

---

I started reading this book just to appease my little brother, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying myself. The characters were entertaining, and in general I love a good villain origin story. I liked that the book started off with a good pace and got into the plot without wasting much time, but it did lag a bit in the middle. The dynamics between the characters could have been worked on a bit more, and Darkstalker’s turn was not entirely graceful. There were also moments, like D’s mother’s death, when we were left a bit in the dark—learning about what exactly happened to his mother and what went wrong with his father could have made the middle bit more engaging. However, I greatly enjoyed this story overall, and the different timelines made the book very entertaining to speculate and predict throughout; I was constantly putting the book down to run to my brother and tell him my new theory. I’m happy that I finally gave into my brother’s wishes, and maybe I’ll give some of the other books a shot. Overall, a very good middle grade novel and a compelling villain story.