Isadora Chang left home two years ago. She’d grown up in an oppressive, small mining town in the middle of nowhere, but after two of her friends died by suicide, she fled. Fled the deaths that haunted the town going back decades. Fled the mother that wouldn’t talk to her and the father that abused her. She thought she escaped, that art school got her out for good. But even that has turned sour. She’s so broke she’s crashing on the couch at her part time job, and she’s at risk of failing out of her art program if she can’t complete her portfolio. Thing is, she did actually finish it, she just doesn’t remember doing it. Her pieces are horror shows, all twisted figures in grotesque positions, people from back home dying in terrible ways. And then her own father dies. And then Isa has to return to Slater. And then things get worse.
Back home, her mother has spiraled out of control and sealed all the windows shut, and her older sister, Trish, is sleepwalking more than ever. Slater is ruled by the Vandersteen family, who helped found the town and now run the local clinic, fund pretty much everything, and always get their way. Two years ago, Isa was friends with Mason, Wren, and Zach. When Mason was blamed for Wren’s death, Isa wasn’t there to help him. Now here he is, begging her to listen to him when he says a monstrous spirit is killing kids and only the two of them can do something about it. Because he’s not wrong. Their shared trauma connects them not just to each other but to the darkness at the heart of Slater as well. And that darkness has its eyes on Isa.
We’re in a veritable golden age of YA horror right now, and it takes a lot to stand out from the crowd. You’ve got to have an interesting premise, compelling characters, and a strong grasp on the craft. Wen-yi Lee handles all three well. We don’t get much small town horror in YA, real small town, not just a suburb or a small city. Lee set The Dark We Know in a dried up mining town in the middle of winter, when everything is cold and dreary and dead. Slater is the kind of place where everyone is all up in everyone else’s business and the only places to hang out are the local diner and the woods. The plot unfolds slowly (perhaps a little too slowly), before ratcheting up in intensity and fervor until it’s got you hooked. While I remain unconvinced by the handwaving that goes on to explain what’s actually happening in the town, the confrontations with the monstrous being are entertaining and chilling.
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The Dark We Know
As for characters, some work better than others. Isa is a rich tapestry of nuance and frustration. She’s trying so hard to not be the person she was when she left Slater that she doesn’t know who she is when she finally returns. She denies her friends and family thinking it’s what they (and she) deserves only to realize just how wrong she’s been. I appreciated how Lee allowed her to grapple with her abusive childhood and all her father took from her while also trying to figure out how to build something new out of all that rubble. There are a lot of teens who need to see someone else go through that journey to help them as they navigate their own journey. Mason, too, has a troubled past he’s trying to sort out. He’s learning where the line is between rebellion and troublemaker and what he thinks about the new identities he’s discovering in himself. Trish, Otto Vandersteen, and Isa’s mother get less development, to their detriment. Others are vital to the plot but wholly forgettable as characters. Because they’re so underdeveloped, they feel more like plot devices than people.
One thing that pleasantly surprised me was the lack of romance. While relationships happen in the background—Isa had a failed date back at art school, Mason dated Wren and kissed someone else—romance isn’t a subplot. In young adult fiction nowadays, romance is everywhere. Romance is so predominant that platonic relationships can feel like a rarity. I spent much of the novel waiting for that inevitable moment when Isa caught feelings for one of the secondary characters, but it never came. This really is a book about the two main characters having a platonic relationship! The power of friendship will save us all. It’s not that I don’t like romance in my fiction, it’s more that it’s nice to have some variety. Teens need to know that they have the option to date outside the compulsory heterosexual social norms, but they also need to know that they don’t have to date at all and that you can in fact just be friends with someone you might otherwise find attractive.
Wen-yi Lee’s The Dark We Know is a visceral, atmospheric young adult horror novel. Like the monster haunting the town, this novel will get its claws into you. Readers who like social horror, small town horror, and stories about queer teens confronting their traumas should pick up this engrossing novel.
The Dark We Know is published by Zando/Gillian Flynn Books.
