A review by daniellestarredpages
The Dark We Know by Wen-yi Lee

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

2.5


"The Dark We Know" follows Isadpra Chang as she is forced to return to Slater the repressive small town she ran away from. However, I found myself wishing this book was from any other character's perspective. Isadora's P.O.V. was quite the slog to get through, plus I found the overall reading experience to be overwhelmingly boring. Also, the flowery writing in this novel didn't match the tone I believe the author intended to set, so I didn't find the novel's atmosphere as chilling as I expect the author hoped I would.

To focus on Isa and her running away from Slater, I don't think that made much sense. Based on the current age of Isa and the other characters we follow, she was about 16 when she first ran away and started university and I'm pretty sure you need to have some sort of parental permission to enter university at that age. Then the timeline for the town doesn't really make any sense either. A big part of the creation of evil plaguing Slater is the mass death that occurred during/because of a plague. But as the story goes on, we discover that the plague wasn't that far back in history as the story initially led us to believe. And since this plague took place sometime in (earliest) the early 1900s, many of the actions taken by the characters in the plague didn't seem like things they could easily get away with. 

As I said before, the overall reading experience of this book was really boring, I attribute this to the fact that almost the entirety of the novel lacked any actual suspense or tension. There were scenes that I felt should have heightened the overall tension, but the writing went on so much that it took me out of the story.

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