Review: Darkness Becomes Her

Darkness Becomes Her

Kelly Keaton

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Release Date: February 22, 2011

Pages: 288

Source: GalleyGrab

Ratings: 4 Stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

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.

When I started Darkness Becomes Her, I expected it to be another typical supernatural YA book. I was mistaken. Instead, Kelly Keaton created something new, this time using other creates then the typical vampires, werewolves and fairies.

I loved the setting of this book. It took me a little bit to realize that the book took place in what I could only describe as an alternate time line, one where New Orleans was destroyed by a horrible natural disaster and New 2 was established in it’s place. I really liked New 2. It was such a great place, exactly what I imagined a supernatural New Orleans would be like. It was such a mystical, mysterious, it was great unraveling the secrets of the place and meeting the people who lived in New 2.

I really liked Ari. She was searching for who she was and was extremely strong. She took everything in stride, all the twists and turns that were thrown at her as she was unraveling her mother’s past and unraveling who she really was as well. The people Ari meets in New 2 are great too. Each one was different had their own personality.

I did have one issue with this book and that was the pacing. I felt that the time span of the book could have been lengthened. Everything happened very quickly. Within a day Ari was falling in love with Sebastian, one of the guys Ari meets in New 2, and she was unraveling everything within a week. If the time span was longer, the relationships and the plot wouldn’t have seemed so rushed.

One of the great things about this book was it had twists that I didn’t see. There was one twist that I literally gasped out loud because I did not seeing coming. I really like that this book incorporated mythology and put a new twist on it. I really love Greek mythology and I loved the twist Kelly Keaton put on it to make certain myths her own.

The ending of this book wrapped up the issue of the first book nicely, with Ari discovering who she was and about her parents past, but was open enough for a new book. I really cannot wait to read this second one because once everything happened it happened quickly and big things happened. I want to go back to Ari’s world and New 2 and I cannot wait to see what happens next in this series.