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A review by alexblackreads
Dark Corners by Megan Goldin
3.0
I was very disappointed by this book. I loved the Night Swim when I read it in 2022. It was a fantastic thriller in so many ways with really great writing and a whole lot of depth. But this sequel fell flat for me. I was torn between two and three stars, but despite my disappointment I feel like this was entertaining enough. It just barely scraped into the 3 star range.
For starters, I hated the romance. Like genuinely hated it. I really enjoy a good romantic subplot, but the operative word there is 'good.' This romance had no depth and no development. The two characters had no rapport, except I guess that they're both single and available. It made me cringe every time they had a scene together, which luckily was not all that often.
The plot itself was also very obvious. I guessed the twists and turns really early on in The Night Swim too, but the difference was that I still cared about the story in that book. I cared about the characters and the details and the development. I didn't care about anything here. I knew what would happen and in addition to being obvious, it felt so generic. The killer is generic. The victims are generic. Even Rachel Krall herself seems to be lacking the depth I saw in her in the first book.
I also found it incredibly annoying that the reader was often not privy to the same information as the narrators in the book. I get that thrillers keep secrets from the reader and that's kind of the point, but this was like investigative content. For example, Rachel, the main character, would send a text message with insights on the case to the FBI agent, but then we wouldn't see the text message. I really hate when thrillers do that.
I was also super annoyed by all the judgment this book was throwing at influencers- for two main reasons. First it's super played out right now. Yes haha influencers are shallow and vapid losers, what clever commentary you have. But also the main character is a literal influencer. She has a true crime podcast. She is one of them. It had "not like other girls" vibes in a way that I found very irritating.
This is one of those sequels that really makes me question my enjoyment of the first book. Like it was still entertaining enough. I didn't hate it or anything and it was a perfectly adequate thriller. The writing style is still nice and I was always down to continue, but I was hoping for so much more after The Night Swim.
For starters, I hated the romance. Like genuinely hated it. I really enjoy a good romantic subplot, but the operative word there is 'good.' This romance had no depth and no development. The two characters had no rapport, except I guess that they're both single and available. It made me cringe every time they had a scene together, which luckily was not all that often.
The plot itself was also very obvious. I guessed the twists and turns really early on in The Night Swim too, but the difference was that I still cared about the story in that book. I cared about the characters and the details and the development. I didn't care about anything here. I knew what would happen and in addition to being obvious, it felt so generic. The killer is generic. The victims are generic. Even Rachel Krall herself seems to be lacking the depth I saw in her in the first book.
I also found it incredibly annoying that the reader was often not privy to the same information as the narrators in the book. I get that thrillers keep secrets from the reader and that's kind of the point, but this was like investigative content. For example, Rachel, the main character, would send a text message with insights on the case to the FBI agent, but then we wouldn't see the text message. I really hate when thrillers do that.
I was also super annoyed by all the judgment this book was throwing at influencers- for two main reasons. First it's super played out right now. Yes haha influencers are shallow and vapid losers, what clever commentary you have. But also the main character is a literal influencer. She has a true crime podcast. She is one of them. It had "not like other girls" vibes in a way that I found very irritating.
This is one of those sequels that really makes me question my enjoyment of the first book. Like it was still entertaining enough. I didn't hate it or anything and it was a perfectly adequate thriller. The writing style is still nice and I was always down to continue, but I was hoping for so much more after The Night Swim.