The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

I received an ARC of Kara Thomas' The Darkest Corners in a FanMail box for February, which is a subscription box full of geeky/nerdy items that is targeted towards females. The book was randomly placed in a few of the February boxes (everybody else got the first few chapters of the book to preview). The book was not sent to me for review purposes and there was no notion of me writing a review. I honestly just loved the book and wanted to write about it.

The story is about two teen girls, Tessa and Callie. Callie's cousin Lori disappeared when the girls were younger, believed to be the victim of a serial killer at the time, the 'Monster.' The story picks up 10 years after Lori's disappearance and Tessa is returning to the town and Callie. It's a mystery/suspense YA novel, that does an excellent job of keeping the reader guessing.

What I Liked: Tessa, the narrator, is a completely believable young adult narrator. She's quiet, but not moody, which would be an easy out for an author to take in order to generate some conflict within her main character. Tessa had a hard childhood and the reader can see how that affected her, but it doesn't make her a brat. Callie is another main character on the edge between teen and young adult and her actions, while a little more bratty than Tessa, are completely in line with how you might expect a traumatized teen to behave. Both girls are different and nuanced and such strong characters, that I easily found myself rooting for them and wanting them to solve the mystery of Lori's disappearance and what happened that night.

All the other characters are pretty well-developed, though most don't have much screen time. Maggie, Callie's mother, is probably the most important secondary character and she's completely believable as a mother who loves her daughter and Tessa to a degree, but is still human and makes mistakes. I think that's what I loved best about this novel, that all the characters are so realistic. It made the story easy for me to get into, because I wasn't constantly wondering why these characters were acting so irrationally.

What I Didn't Like: Being an ARC, there were a few grammar/spelling mistakes. At one point, a tertiary character is referred to as Nikki and then as Maddie a few pages later. Danny is changed to Denny and back, but overall it wasn't enough to detract from the story.

The one plot point I had a problem with was the reveal of the serial killer, nicknamed 'the Monster.' No spoilers, but I felt like the reveal was kind of unexpected and not in a good way. There's didn't seem to be a lot of clues as to the killer's identity and the revelation was seemingly thrown in there to wrap that plot up.

It wasn't enough for me to dislike the story, but it was a very abrupt ending to that plot point.

Overall, though, I absolutely loved this book and would highly recommend it to anybody.

Any comments/questions/concerns, please feel free to email me at booksunderbed@gmail.com.