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A review by maises
When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom
dark
tense
3.25
“When Darkness Loves Us” blew my expectations away. Extremely well-written, especially when it came to inner character voices. Really dark and unapologetic about it. I liked that everything was so visceral and people dealt with trauma in messy, indiscernible ways. Some unforgivable things happen and that was just that.
After the first story, I didn’t expect to like “Beauty is…” as much, and while I think some of it fell a little too flat for me (the parent chapters were a little slow), the build up ended with a bang. I was worried it would fall into the “mentally ill as source of horror” trope, but Engstrom portrays this in a way that is at least not accusatory or unsympathetic. Still not the best aged work. I enjoyed reading both stories, but might just prefer the first in terms of subject matter.
After the first story, I didn’t expect to like “Beauty is…” as much, and while I think some of it fell a little too flat for me (the parent chapters were a little slow), the build up ended with a bang. I was worried it would fall into the “mentally ill as source of horror” trope, but Engstrom portrays this in a way that is at least not accusatory or unsympathetic. Still not the best aged work. I enjoyed reading both stories, but might just prefer the first in terms of subject matter.