THE DARKEST CORNERS BY KARA THOMAS

While I don't think this was a bad book I did find it to be very slow with too much going on. I would certainly read another book by the author as this is her debut but am hoping it won't be as weirdly complex as this one. 

Rating: ★★
​Release Date: April 11, 2016
Genre: Young Adult Mystery and Thriller 
Series: None. Standalone. 
Pages: 338
​Format: Purchased. Paperback.

For fans of Gillian Flynn and Pretty Little Liars, The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller about the lies little girls tell, and the deadly truths those lies become.

There are secrets around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about what happened there that last summer. 

She and her childhood best friend Callie never talked about what they saw. Not before the trial. And certainly not after.
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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.
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Only the closer Tessa gets to what really happened, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.

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Read my Book Review

Release Date: April 19, 2016
Genre: Young Adult Mystery, Thriller, Crime

I've wanted to read this authors work for a quite some time now and while I wasn't totally disappointed I did find the book to be both too much and too little at the same time. That sounds confusing, right? Well let me tell you why. In terms of "too much" there was a LOT going on (especially behind the scenes) that don't make sense until the very end. And even at the end I was confused!?! Had the author stuck to one issue (because these issues were HUGE) I think I may have been more satisfied. In terms of the book not doing enough, I mean that there was little to no showing or telling what the issues where until we were hit in the face with them. That made the build up of the story very slow and the climax much too surreal and weird. With that being said, I am stuck with how to rate this book because I found it to be both compelling and terribly stupid at the same time. 

MORE ABOUT THE STORY 

A young woman is thrust back into the place she grew when her father is dying in prison. She never wanted to return to this dreaded place because it holds too many memories that she would much rather forget then face again. But she has no choice as she seems to need a bit of closure even though she hasn't seen her father in 10 years. 

Fall back 10 yeas and this same girl (her name is Tessa) and her friend "witnessed" a murder. Their compelling testimony to the police lead to the capture of this man- a serial killer targeting working girls. So what happens if 10 year later, they think they got the wrong guy?

Within the story there is a ton of stuff going on- a lot of amateur sleuthing (teen sleuthing), a lot of reminiscing of the crappy childhood that Tessa had, and family secrets that pop up out of nowhere. Friends reunite, the stalkers become the stalked, and demented family members LITERALLY come out of the woods. Readers will journey with Tessa as she shuffles through old family skeletons while trying to find the true killer before the one who was wrongly implicated is put into the death chamber. What will happen? You would have to read to find out. 

OVERALL THOUGHTS 

This is an interesting story if you go by the plot (which sounds super good) but when you get down to reading it it comes off at mediocre at best. It's slow, deals with a ton of weird issues that can leave readers feeling both disbelief and engrossed at the same time. But, it's not a bad story... Just truly unbelievable and complex for what it needs to be. I would read another book by the author but wouldn't really recommend this one unless you want to just read it to see how it plays out. 

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE BOOK 

➜ The authors ability to weave twists and turns that are truly unforgettable. 

➜ The inclusion of a serial killer within the novel (I am always intrigued by these psychopaths)

➜ The re-ignition of a long lost friendship between Callie and Tessa

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE ABOUT THE BOOK 

➜ There was way too much going on in such a short amount of time. There were literally issues upon issues that kept coming up. It was all just too much for the story. 

➜ The girls didn't behave like teenagers in this one. Sure they are 18, but they didn't read as if there were this age. Seemed to me like they were adults to me which really threw me off as this is a YA book. 

➜ The ending: WTF?!?! I am clueless and left wanting which is not something any reader wants from a standalone novel. The ending should be clean, cut, and concise. However, that is not the case here. Unless I am missing something.... 

➜ How close it resembles Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. As I was reading this one I kept thinking how similar it is to another book I have read. Guess what? It reads like Sharp Objects!

★★