Review : The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas
The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas
Pages : 336
Genre : YA, Mystery
Stand alone
My Rating : 4/5
About the Book :
Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.
Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.
But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.
Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.
My Thoughts :
You guys know that I love thrillers, YA or otherwise. So when I first heard of The Darkest Corners, I immediately knew I would be reading this one.
The Darkest Corners was exactly my kind of thriller. It’s slow-moving, character-driven and intriguing. While there are definitely surprises along the way (it is a thriller/mystery after all!), it’s not the kind of book where every chapter ends on a TWIST! Its suspense pulls you in slowly, the clues sprinkled lightly through the story. A story filled with lies and untold truths, which makes it a very fun guessing game for the reader!
On top of that, I loved how heavy and opaque the atmosphere was. The characters added to that, with Tessa being quiet and mysterious about her life and her past. I was also pleasantly surprised by her relationships with the people of Fayette. The romance and the mean girls I expected, weren’t exactly what I thought they would be.
It had a few flaws; somewhere in the middle, I felt the story lost its direction a bit. Too many clues and possibilities maybe? It did keep the mystery and the creepy vibe alive, for sure, but for me it just didn’t work as well as the beginning or the end.
All in all The Darkest Corners was a really good mystery, one I feel would appeal to readers of more mature and adult thrillers. It’s a mystery that features younger characters, well written, captivating and with a great setting. It definitely was a book for me, and I’m already looking forward to the author’s next novel, Little Monsters, coming next summer!
