A review by gregzimmerman
All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

3.0

I'm sorry to be a contrarian on this one, but this one just didn't land for me. It's a beautiful story, carefully crafted and intricate....but so many of the critical plot-driving points just seemed preposterous to me. I might have been able to be less cynical and let these go, but I was already annoyed at this structure, too. This isn't a summer novel you can sink into and read for hours. That's because there are 261 chapters (!!!) in just under 600 pages. I couldn't get my head around why the author would make this choice -- readers often talk about not wanting to feel the author's hand in a book, especially a decades-long thriller, but the short chapters made me really feel like the author was creepily looking over my shoulder, telling me how to read.

If you're reading JUST for plot and character though and don't want to be fussed with thinking too hard about causality, you'll love this. I can certainly see why it's been such a big hit and so highly regarded. But it was a miss for me.