Darkness Becomes Her

Title: Darkness Becomes Her

Author: Kelly Keaton

Format Acquired: epub

Publication Date: February 22, 2011

Publishing House: Simon Pulse

ISBN: 144240924X

Summary
Ari can’t help feeling lost and alone. With teal eyes and freakish silver hair that can’t be changed or destroyed, Ari has always stood out. And after growing up in foster care, she longs for some understanding of where she came from and who she is. Her search for answers uncovers just one message from her long dead mother: Run. Ari can sense that someone, or something, is getting closer than they should. But it’s impossible to protect herself when she doesn’t know what she’s running from or why she is being pursued.

She knows only one thing: she must return to her birthplace of New 2, the lush rebuilt city of New Orleans. Upon arriving, she discovers that New 2 is very...different. Here, Ari is seemingly normal. But every creature she encounters, no matter how deadly or horrifying, is afraid of her.

Ari won’t stop until she knows why. But some truths are too haunting, too terrifying, to ever be revealed.

(summary from Goodreads)

Review

'Darkness Becomes Her' was one of those few books that I read that I like the premise of, but I felt that it could have been brought about differently. Now, don't get me wrong the book was really good, in fact I am planning on reading the sequel shortly, but the book lacked... something. Ari was one of those characters that I felt like I could identify with a little bit even though the author didn't give much insight of her character. The story started off by jumping into Ari finding out that her mother was at an insane asylum before she gave her up to the state. Ari then goes on a quest to figure out just what is wrong with her and why she is so attractive to guys. The book is also set in the future where New Orleans is a supernatural hub and it is drawing Ari into it. This premise of the story is like a lot of the YA supernatural stories, but it has a twist.

One of the things that bothered me about this book is that is had plot holes... and not just a few. It had a lot of holes in the story where it jumped from one scene to the next without any prior explanation. I would expect this in fanfiction or amateur writing, but not in a published novel. Maybe the author wanted to spare the reader the details of perhaps mundane actions, but it would have helped if the holes weren't as big in the story. Another thing that was a little hard to follow was that Keaton introduced not only supernatural beings, but also mythology in this book and then she mixed them all up. I think that perhaps this was a bit much because I not only had to follow the storyline of witches, shifters, and vampires but also the mythological gods as well. I liked it, but at the same time I feel like it was just a huge plot of thrown in supernatural beings with no real explanation.

Overall, I really did enjoy the book even looking past the plot holes and sometimes confusing character twists. I would recommend it to those that love the supernatural YA category but I would not recommend it to those that don't really follow/ want to follow the story lines of mythology. 

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