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A review by alilbitofmonica
We Ate the Dark by Mallory Pearson
Did not finish book. Stopped at 30%.
I really wanted to like this book based on the eerie cover and the intriguing description. Unfortunately, I had to DNF 30% in. I am still going to give this 2 stars as I think the plot has a lot of promise and ultimately could get better and result in a really good story IF I were able to power through the absolute sludge of descriptive writing clogging up the pacing.
A few positive points:
- The mystery element revolving around Sofia's death was really interesting and I was excited to see how Marya's role would come into play as the truth was unraveled
- The found family element with the girls was precious, and I loved that they had varying levels of trust after the five year span between Sofia going missing and being found
- The writing is so very very descriptive and at times very lyrical or poetic. It is easy to visualize some of the scenes because of the long-winded descriptions.
Reasons I DNFed (slightly unhinged and brutally honest comments ahead):
- The writing style is just too descriptive, leaving the plot to sit stagnant or move at a painfully slow pace. Like I do not need a whole page just to describe what the living room looked like during the funeral. I don't need 3 paragraphs telling me in detail about a 3-word interaction that didn't actually establish anything important.
- I spaced out so much, and that was me using an audio AND ebook to read it. I couldn't pay attention because there was nothing happening. It was all just setting the scene without the scene even happening.
- By 30% I feel like all I had learned was that Sofia was dead and Marya could see her ghost... Like I genuinely don't know the plot other than trying to figure out who killed Sofia?
- I had no distinction between the three main friends - Frankie, Cass, and Poppy. They all had the same personality and attitude, and because they all seemed to have some sort of romantic relationship or at least attraction to each other, there were times where I truly had no idea who was who. But they were also being weirdly standoffish to each other sometimes and I just couldn't figure them out.
- The chapters with Sofia and Finder had me feeling so lost and confused. Probably because the main story made no progress so having these alternating pov chapters just felt like it was throwing the pacing way out of whack.
A few positive points:
- The mystery element revolving around Sofia's death was really interesting and I was excited to see how Marya's role would come into play as the truth was unraveled
- The found family element with the girls was precious, and I loved that they had varying levels of trust after the five year span between Sofia going missing and being found
- The writing is so very very descriptive and at times very lyrical or poetic. It is easy to visualize some of the scenes because of the long-winded descriptions.
Reasons I DNFed (slightly unhinged and brutally honest comments ahead):
- The writing style is just too descriptive, leaving the plot to sit stagnant or move at a painfully slow pace. Like I do not need a whole page just to describe what the living room looked like during the funeral. I don't need 3 paragraphs telling me in detail about a 3-word interaction that didn't actually establish anything important.
- I spaced out so much, and that was me using an audio AND ebook to read it. I couldn't pay attention because there was nothing happening. It was all just setting the scene without the scene even happening.
- By 30% I feel like all I had learned was that Sofia was dead and Marya could see her ghost... Like I genuinely don't know the plot other than trying to figure out who killed Sofia?
- I had no distinction between the three main friends - Frankie, Cass, and Poppy. They all had the same personality and attitude, and because they all seemed to have some sort of romantic relationship or at least attraction to each other, there were times where I truly had no idea who was who. But they were also being weirdly standoffish to each other sometimes and I just couldn't figure them out.
- The chapters with Sofia and Finder had me feeling so lost and confused. Probably because the main story made no progress so having these alternating pov chapters just felt like it was throwing the pacing way out of whack.